I'm bored, so God start your engines...it's BLOG time.

Hello Journal, usually I come to my blog site and I think do I REALLY want to write today? And then I realize I don't and I move on to Facebook. Well, since I'm kinda going on Facebook fast and trying not to consume my boredom away, and I felt like I should write a post, I got on. I wonder what I'll write today. Ok God, you can come in now.

Oh, haha, God IS amazing. Ok here it goes. So, going along with the boredom thing, I feel like sometimes we approach prayer like I do my blog. We think, do I really want to pray right now, and then we'll dismiss it because we don't feel like it right now...or something. Happens to me all the time. And so, God wants me to say something about prayer.

Prayer is interesting, you know? Like, if God really does know what's going to happen and already has a plan for us, then why are we praying for help? I mean you can praise him and all, but why ask god for anything if it's going to happen anyway? Well, I think that God wants us to pray because then we can see the works of His hand. And he also wants us to come to Him and repent, even if He knows we did it already. It's like this. Let's say that you do something bad and you mom knows already, but you go to her and tell her you did it, it's going to make the situation a lot better because then you build a trust between the both of you, even if you messed up. I think God wants us to tell Him everything because then WE build a trust in Him. Prayer is about us.

Yeah, I know Journal, that sounds super selfish, but really, God gave us a way to communicate with Him so that we can grow in our relationship and faith with Him. It's not all about telling Him what you've done wrong either, but you can come to Him and ask Him for what you NEED. Now, let's make it clear, that if you pray for something you already have you are wasting your time. Like praying that God will be with you....umm I'm pretty sure He's been with you before you even could say the word prayer, let alone know what it meant.

I think I'll wrap this up pretty soon, just needed something to do, but here's the deal. Keep praying, even when you don't feel like it. Tell God you don't feel like praying and tell Him that you want to want to pray. He'll understand, He knows we're only human and that as hard as we try to want to praise Him all day and be on spiritual Skype with Him, our minds goes elsewhere.

Ok, I'm done for now, Journal. Until next time, keep praying.

i promise this whole thing is worth reading.

I heard a speaker, his name was Gregory Khoakl, and though his name is a mouth full, at the end of speaking he leaves your mouth wide open. He has an amazing way of conveying his ideas into a way that both scholars and 3^rd graders would pick up on and definitely not be bored. So, in my next few paragraphs I’d like to abbreviate what I heard, and please know that what I say does not justify what he said. P.S. This is about God; I thought I’d warn you.

Greg’s talk was about evil, suffering, and the goodness of God. That was in fact the title of his presentation. He goes into great depth defining these topics, and relating them to different theological (or non-theological) beliefs, showing how they produce invalidity in the other beliefs when questioned on these. The most amazing thing is that he does not bring Satan in once, and also, he doesn’t really bring God into it until the end.

He first starts with a demonstration, he refers to the movie Sophie’s Choice, which is the story of a women who, when brought to a concentration camp during WWII, is forced to choose one of her two children who will live and who will be sent off to the gas chambers. She picks, but the story is based on the effects of this choice, and a popular topic is brought up: “Why would God allow this evil to happen?”

Greg does get to an answer for this, but first, he found it necessary to define what evil was. He writes on the white board: “Evil Is Something. Evil Exists. It’s Real.” His point in this was to address the recent fad belief called relativism, which is the wide spread belief that morals are relative, that right and wrong are different for everybody. He says that if this is true, that morals are relative, then further discussion on evil is impossible. Why? “You have to have a way to keep score, or a standard, to make the judgment that something is evil.” He says, “If there is no real scoring system for right and wrong, then there is no real evil, and how can we hold God responsible for something that doesn’t exist?” At this point, most relativists would be stumped because they would either have to admit that there was a moral standard, which would contradict their beliefs, or they would have to say that God does not allow evil to happen. They can’t complain about evil being a problem, because in their world, evil does not exist.

He humorously demonstrates that you can steal from a relativist and see what their reaction is. If they express their disapproval, by their own beliefs, why should YOU care? It’s fine in your own beliefs and you are getting what you want. But most people are considerate and care because that is what is good and if there is good, then there must be a standard people are following.

Greg brings up another point, about how many believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. He finds this statement very false; beauty comes from God. He presents a scene where he was at a conference for a theological debate against a relativist and the nature of beauty was brought up. Outside where the Canadian mountains and Greg asks, “Are those mountains beautiful because when you look at them you get a good emotion? Do your feelings make it beautiful? Or is it that those mountains are beautiful that make you feel the way you do?” His opponent was stuck. He chuckles as he says, “I wish I had thought of this at the time, but what I would have asked next was, ‘Have you ever called your wife beautiful? If it’s your emotion that makes her beautiful, then I would probably leave that part out.” Greg shows how not only do these beliefs make the individual seem selfish, but they moreover they are contradictory to themselves.

He then moves on to atheistic beliefs and says, “However, if you can complain about evil existing, you cannot be an atheist. Real evil must mean there’s a real God.” He adds that this is the only viable argument that atheists hold, and it is a handy argument because everyone experiences evil. “But if there is no God, how does evil occur in the materialistic world where everything is physical? EVERYONE experiences it.” He proves his point by stating that if there is no God, there’s no perfect standard, no absolute wrong or right, and therefore no departure from that standard. If we follow that track, we find ourselves relativists again.

Greg then goes to explain that even though evil is something; it is not just some thing. He says, “Evil is a word that describes something that is missing, a privation, like donut holes and shadows. If evil isn’t some thing, then it wasn’t created, and therefore didn’t need a creator, making possible an alternate explanation for its existence.” Greg talks about a guy who went on his radio show who asks him, “How do you kneel at the bed of a dying child and tell them there is a God?” Greg tells the audience, “Well, I would much rather give them that hope, whereas an atheist is going to say what? ‘Tough luck’?”

This suggestion that evil is the missing of something, refers to the missing of good. In the bible it says that God made the world perfect, and he created humans with free will. So, when Adam and Eve sinned and ate the forbidden fruit they didn’t bring evil into the world, but they took away the perfect good. If God is light, then wherever there is not light or perfect good, there is shadow.

“Evil is an intruder, brought by man, not God. He didn’t create it. Evil is just the description of what happened when man refused God’s leadership. We live in a crippled world, and in a crippled world produces crippled people and crippled circumstances.” Greg brings up a common argument that without freedom, we couldn’t love. “This is false. God loves, but cannot be bad, so sin and love are two separate entities. And because of love, God gave us the free will. That free will is what allows sin.”

So, what is God doing about evil then? Greg lists a few ways God has given us resources to cope with evil. First, he gave us the institutions of family, church, and government. These are helps for us, but when they don’t do their job the way God wants them to, things go wrong. Currently, this is very apparent, both in the government and even churches and families. Lives are corrupted by evil, and its so hard to find help because the help is corrupted so often. Greg has more ways God helps us though; second, God gives us His Holy Spirit to all who ask for it so that He can help them overpower the evil in their personal individual lives. Greg says, “He will help you, but He is not the bridge over troubled waters, He is the tow through it and you have to hold on to Him. It requires true faith that even though it’s rough right now, He is leading you the right way.”

Third, Greg quotes the bible in saying that there will be a time when God will remove every remnant of evil from His creation and will restore the goodness. This is in reference to the second coming of Christ, when He will take all the true believers to His kingdom, and then the world will be destroyed and recreated to perfection and be the new kingdom. It will be heaven on earth, and life will be perfect.

Most importantly, the fourth way God helps us is through His son’s death on the cross for all of our sins. “He sent him to die for evil men offering mercy instead of justice, so they can be forgiven rather than condemned,” Greg says. “All you have to do is believe this happened and you’ve got it.” God says, “You want to talk about the innocent suffering? Fine. Let’s talk about my son.”

Thanks for reading, and sorry I haven't written in forever! This isn't even my normal style at all, but this guy was amazing! Until next time Journal, BELIEVE IN GOD!!! :)

oh SO cliche.

Happy New Year Journal! I haven't written in a while, and today I don't feel like writing so much, but I still am going to. So, every year everyone tells themselves that this year they are going to make their resolutions and bla bla bla. And that is the cliche. Or, it was. Now we have the new cliche, and that is the "trying to not be cliche and if efforts of doing so become a cliche" group" and they are saying they aren't going to keep a resolution, so why make it? Why not when everyone asks just say some philosophical reason of how you are just going to do the best you can because you know what you need to do and by saying it you're not really doing anything for yourself. Thanks Tom Cruise....and on ward.
I've been thinking a lot lately about why I don't like cliches...and why everyone "doesn't either"...because being cliche really is just a fad. And that fad died, and now it's being original and being an individual that is the fad and so people are just flocking like sheeps to this idea of "being an individual"...but even being an individual is being cliche. WHAT IS BEING AN INDIVIDUAL?
And then Journal, God took over the blog. You see, we as humans are so insignificant and unimportant and whatever we do with our life is worthless without a God. But someone famous has not caught on to that yet, and so people don't understand it and are following the fads that rampage across culture. So what is the fad that people are missing? What is this popular culture that people haven't flung themselves into? It's living for God. No really, not the cliche living for God. Like ACTUALLY living for God. I haven't even fully grasped it, and I'm not sure anyone can fully except for like...JESUS. He was pretty much the coolest most individual person ever because really NO ONE can possibly be like Him. And so, can there possibly be an individual?
Well, first off, if you actually try and be like Jesus...you already are part of a small group. I don't care if that's offensive to you and you think that the "Christians" are a large and very prominent clan. They aren't. There are very few. In proportion to the rest of the world. And second off, here comes a blow to the head: WHO CARES?! Who cares if you are an individual? Do you think that if you are an individual that means that you're a better person or that you're more respectable because you don't give in to an idea and feel that you have to be apart from that. Don't be apart be a part! that's what Christianity is all about. Being a part of a community and of working together to accomplish not your will and desire to feel above it all, but God's will because He's actually above it all. Going out of your way to be different means that you care more about who YOU are/wannabe...and not who He is.
Journal, I could go into a lot more...but I'm going to stop here. It's not my place to tell people what they can and can't be. And that's not what I'm trying to do. I am trying to remind you what the bible says, what God wants you to be.
Until next time Journal, be different, be the yourself God wants you to be.

not everyone is going to like me. oh. my. gosh.

Hello Journal, so I've realized that of late I have added a lot of depression ensuing or possibly...condemning blog posts that just show that I'm cynical, and I'm stupid. I mean really, I don't know anything. And all these blog posts could be are a way of me expressing how smart I think I am and loading a bunch of possible crap onto a wed page. Great. But then, I think about the fact that possibly nobody REALLY knows anything. And then I think, then what is the point of anything?! And then I remember that there is a god. And, so I will continue writing out of my butt, because since I have nothing else to do, I might as well talk about something I may or may not have any experience and/or knowledge of, but an opinion acting as if I do.

So, Journal, after that little side track, I want to talk about the fact that as hard as I try, not everybody is going to like me. I can love people as much as I want and I can put all the effort I possibly can into one person just thinking that I would be a worthwhile friend, and they will not budge. We are a fallen world I suppose, but it really hit me like a school bus when this epiphany came. I mean, of course not EVERYONE is going to like me. Now, certain people it's more obvious why they wouldn't like me....per say, terrorists...we have a few contrasting beliefs that would most likely put a damper on our friendship, but then there are those who I just cannot figure out.

And it's usually these people that I will try the hardest to get to know, because all I want is an explanation for myself. Ha! When I was younger (this year) I used believe that I had file cabinets in my head that I stored files on everyone I knew, and some people had one little file, and some people had a whole drawer. Now, there were people that it didn't matter how much I knew about them and sometimes I knew way too much...like Orlando Bloom...I was young. And then there were people that I would do ridiculous things like, friend them on FaceBook and ask them where I knew them from just to start a potential "I know you" thing. It wasn't because I WANTED to look like I was stalking them or even worse LIKED them, it was just because I like to know people and I want people to want to know me. Am I conceited? We are a fallen world.

Journal, possibly my tweeny antics of getting to know people...like pretty much technologically (virtually?) bumping into them to make them aware of my existence so that we would be acquaintances is a little over board, but it's worked before and now I've realized that if it doesn't work every time, it doesn't just mean that I'm still freakish, but it also demonstrates that not everyone will be my friend. And Journal, I'm okay with that.

Until next time Journal, be friendly...to everyone! :) Wanna be friends?

guess what?! i actually care about what i look like.

Dear Journal, it is kinda interesting when you hear all the people who try and tell you that God doesn't care what you look like on the outside and therefor you really don't/shouldn't exert that much energy trying to look good. Now I know there are people who cross the line, getting boob jobs or new faces or bla bla bla, but then there are also those who are on the negative scale who almost try to look bad to make it seem like they really don't care! But Journal, I like to look at it this way. God gives us our body as...a rental. We use it in life when we need it, but really it belongs to Him. So, let's say you have a rental car, and you're on your trip, and you just decide that you'll not wash it and write "wash me" on the back window, leave all your trash inside of it and destroy the seats, and you even crash it a few times, then bring it back to the dealership. And, SUPRISE! They are po'd to the max. Well, I'm pretty sure God would be pissed if we trashed our rental and brought it back to Him a mess.
Journal, I always hear girls say that they don't want to wear makeup because one day when they are married, their husband will wake up to someone he's never seen before. Well, ladies...maybe if you didn't plaster on mascara and eyeliner and not look like freaking wannabe barbie everyday, and just made it natural and enhanced what you do have, not add on what you don't, you wouldn't have to worry as much about it and at the same time you can be beautiful. I'm pretty sure it's impossible for God to make someone ugly. Like really ugly. But then why do I see people that make me want to rip my eyes out? Because they either 1) let themselves go, or 2) they try so hard to be unnaturally beautiful, it starts catching up with them and pretty much guarantees that the public eye will be scarred by their decision to leave the house that day. I mean really, sometimes I feel offended by someone from just looking at them.
I don't have much more to say on this topic, I really just wanted to clarify that it is OK to want to look good and actually take a little effort in the morning to get ready instead of rolling out of bed five minutes after class starts and...gracing...everyone with your presence. Even though you shouldn't worry too much what others think, just do it for yourself, and more importantly God. It will be appreciated by Him, by your boyfriend/anyone else, and me. Haha!
Until next time Journal, stay beautiful.

i'm feeling like God has something to say.

I'm not sure what it is Journal, but I'll guess I'll just write. So, today I woke up and looked in the mirror and in my head said, "DANG! I look goooood tooooday! Yeah!" Bahaha and then I thought about how many people say that out loud and personally I've done this and not thought that they were the most attractive people, and said," Awww you look pretty everyday!" but really been thinking, "Bless her heart poor thing." And so, I was wondering how many people thought that of me, but then did an OH SO CLICHE internal statement of "Who cares, because no matter what I'm beautiful in God's eyes." And really a lot of the time when people say that it's because really they can't get over the fact that they either think they are above it all, or they really like looking at themselves in the mirror that day and can't possibly imagine someone not wanting THAT. I mean really, LOOK AT ME! Daaaang girl. So, my story continues, I get into the car and run my fingers through my hair because I'm just THAT cool today (my self-esteem at an all-day high) and then....my fingers get stuck. They get stuck in the rat's nest that must have crept it's way into my lion's main during the night and being in a rush this morning I skipped the hair brushing part of my routine. After trying to manually pry the thing apart, I got it...and the back of my head also looked like I got into a fight with a bear with hair tangling CLAWS!
I put in a lot of effort to try to make myself look a little better, and not only did it look bad in the first place and I made it worse, but I saw it getting worse but I kept going at it because I thought maybe if I just did a little more damage in the end it would all end up ok. My hair would look great like the rest of me. And it didn't. And it hurt because any girl will tell you that when you have to handle one of those suckers, it requires tug-of-war skills and a lot of patience. And when you have neither, you tend to rely on the abilities you DO have. And when you take it into your hands, you end up messing things up.
So, if you're tagging along with the moral of my little tale, I guess at this point, you're wondering (just like me) where the analogy fits in with the fact that no matter what you did, even if you were patient and waited to even touch it until you got home. Well...Oh! God speaking...Well, nobody is perfect. Sometimes God is going to humble you, and that doesn't mean He doesn't love you or isn't there, but he's showing you that He is more important than you're problems, and if you lose sight of that and forget about that (let alone trusting that he'll work things out) then, you're heart is in the wrong place, and you're letting your head mess with YOU a little too much.
Journal, this is all I have for today, but until next time, forget about the hairy mess, and remember that GOD has it in control. When you're in a rush, you forget about the important things...
I guess God DID have something to say!

the ugly truth.

I watched that movie tonight. Offensive. Funny and I personally have a weakness for Gerald Butler, I mean LOOK at him. And then I remembered that it was so not real. I mean, wow, if that was what guys really were like all the time, then there wouldn't be anything real. The ugly truth is that you cannot have love just based on looks and how you can manipulate someone into liking you by playing with their...sinful nature. I mean, let's say you (a "nice" girl) meet a really cool guy, and this is when you're acting like yourself (if you even know what that is) and you decide you like him back. Then you go prancing around in almost nothing and then playing with some guys head and then bla bla bla you get his attention because DUH any guy is going to fall for that and then you get to the part where you can't hold up your pretense anymore/you think he likes you and then he says the OH SO CLICHE "Slow down, you know, you've changed...I liked the old you...." And then boo hooo hooooooo and then you go back to normal in your pity partiness and then the magic fairy sends Mr. Wonderful back to you and ta DA! You're in love again. And happily ever after. Show the credits.
Really? First off if that's what you want in a relationship, then I'd join a convent. Because secondly, since that kind of thing NEVER happens, nope never, you'll most likely end up with one of the two next options. 1) You'll change for some guy you like, and then eventually wind up pregnant and he'll leave you because he isn't THAT kind of guy. 2) You'll change and nothing will happen and you're self-esteem will plummet and then you become a sad desperate "I've got a cloud over my head" girl that even though you think you have an awful life, you're just embarrassing yourself, and no one is going to tell you because you either don't have those kind of friends, or you did and they tried to tell you and you reacted in a way in which that friendship was (as like I say) TERMINATED.
Here is my tip for all girls: Don't go around feeling outspokenly sorry for yourself because you don't have a boyfriend. It's so annoying. If the only way you are going to find self worth is if a guy likes you/wants to bang you even, then you are living for the wrong thing. Before you can even start to like guys you have to LOVE God. Yep, and that's the only cliche I'll say I promise. Don't say I DO love God, I just feel like no one is ever going to like THIS. First, if you love God, you'll trust Him to not only find you a guy that will love for who you are with no makeup on and when you feel fat and ugly and think you're the most gorgeous women he ever wants to be with....BUT also, you will find your own self worth in the fact that God created you and to say that you are not good enough is not only insulting to your own self-esteem, but to Him. Gosh, this blog is getting long.... WRITE A BOOK DEVON.
Ok, to abruptly end my advice session that I myself need to take...God knows his plan for you. Don't think that because you're a respectable girl who hasn't given herself away/ or a girl who has and feels like she's worth nothing that God doesn't have someone perfect out there for you. And PLEASE don't say the whole "I'm not meant to get married....I'm meant to stay alone."PLEASE! That is another ridiculous form of self-pity because if you want to marry someone honestly, that means that you're meant to be with someone. I won't argue that everyone is meant to get married, because some people honestly just don't want to get married, and that's between them and God, but if you truly do want to be with someone, God WILL figure it out for you. The ugly truth is that you have to let Him.

Well, Journal, this is the first time I've addressed you in this post. Until next time...Fall in love with Who you're supposed to love. It'll work out.