i still can't figure it out...

i thought i was going to be five minutes late to my first class this morning but when i pulled into the parking lot at school i finally realized that i was actually 55 minutes early. i know i slept a little bit longer than i intended to but why i rushed to get out of the house i still can't figure out. major case of tired head this morning.

on the flip side...

today on the way to class i decided to take a back road through a more rural area. i was cruising down the road and came upon a turtle making it's way across the street. as i raced by it's little head tucked quickly back into its shell. i felt sorry for the little guy because it was not making very good progress with all the cars passing by so i turned around to go help it out. yep, i got out of my car and carried the little guy across the road. my good deed for the day.

switchfoot was on letterman tonight. i really hope those guys aren't selling out cause they are cutting out some key lyrics in their songs during live performances. (nathan, don't give me any crap) i guess we'll see what happens when the new record comes out.

it was an interesting night tonight with the freshman guys bible study. i've been sitting in with these guys the last couple of weeks and we've been going through the book of job. well tonight we took a little detour and talked about spiritual training, why it's important and how we go about doing it. at the end of the lesson ian, the guy leading the study, asked the guys if they would commit to spending time in prayer and in the word at least three days a week. seems fair i guess. at first i wanted to go on some huge rant about how refreshing it is to spend time with the lord and that we really should do it every day. and how i now give up exercising in the morning if i don't get enough time with God. how i make sure i spend some time in prayer, not in the shower or in my car on the way to school, but sitting still. i wanted these guys to be excited about all this. i want them to understand. then i remembered that everything i have just mentioned pretty much started this week. i am 23 years old and it has now been nine years since i was a freshman in high school. nine year ago someone was probably telling me the same thing. nine years later i am starting to listen. even though these guys don't seem as excited about making this commitment or maybe they just don't no where to begin, my hope is that they don't wait nine more years to start spending time with the Lord. i hope that they see God as being so much bigger than thirty minutes a day three days a week. i hope they see the scripture as living and active. i hope they understand. i hope they don't spend those nine years separating life and God like i did. God is life. He is the giver and sustainer of life. He is what makes life worth living for. he is creatively, wonderfully and gloriously involved throughout the entire earth. i hope they understand. i really hope they understand.

man i am exhausted. tonight was our college led worship service up at church. i have to say things went a lot better then i had originally expected. we thought we would have issues with the sound but the sound was the best that auditorium has heard since it's been built. we thought that an hour and a half of straight singing would be too much but it could have been more. i thought i was going to mess up on my intro to "none compare" but i didn't. we had a crowd and such positive feedback. people kept asking us if we are going to do this next weekend. i would love to but we really don't have the man power to do so right now. running a full-blown service takes a lot of work. it was such a great experience tonight. words really can't explain what a joy it was to see people of all ages joining together in worship and celebration. it was a breath of fresh air and a great start to something i think would be a great addition to our church.

take some time to play in the shadows because reality stalks you right behind the door...

this is real random but my wonderful mother paid for me to get a full-body massage down at the swedish institute in dallas. nice place really. great atmosphere and the staff is amazing but before i go any farther let me just say that i really didn't go there. i wouldn't touch that place with a hundred foot pole. however i did get a massage today. my very first one and maybe my last. it was nice but i find that reading a book on my back porch with a cup of coffee can be just as relaxing. i really appreciate my mom doing that for me though. definitely out of the blue. it was just weird having someone else work for my relaxation.

good times...

yesterday just seemed to drag and i'm not really sure why. i got up around 7:30, had two cups of coffee and read on my back porch. very relaxing i must say. then i took a shower, ate, and began my forty minute commute to school. i have the same teacher for my first two classes which are back to back and in the same room. so needless to say i take a few laps around the building in between class to break up the monotony. but yesterday even the step outside couldn't make these classes go by any faster. i finished up class around 5:00 then headed over to starbucks to read for an hour and grab a pick-me-up. i was tired and not really looking forward to doing anything else. but the plan for the rest of the night was to some how hook up with my friend jennifer visiting from corpus and my other friend jay living in carrolton. jay had to read for school so he couldn't hang until later so i caught up with jennifer at her hotel and we went to grab some dinner. we at this place called the cosmic cafe in dallas. it turned out to be a really nice evening for a day that wouldn't seem to end. the weather was great so we ate outside and the conversation was pleasant. it's so fun laughing and talking about old times. later jay met up with us and we went to the liquid lounge to get some passes for next weekends north texas music festival. i had a really good time last night but i think now the food is getting the best of me.

and then he said...

i am finding out how inadequate i really am and how more God-dependent i need to be.


it's funny how prayer sometimes ends up being the last resort in my life. ok that wasn't really funny but it's true. this has really been evident these last few weeks with several of our church staff in the process of rethinking worship and our approach and response to it. we are in the process of creating a more "emergent" worship gathering open to the whole church but with a different structure then our usual sunday worship. i've so many ideas for stuff i would like to see happen but i have a problem with being so bull-headed about it. i've really had to take a step back and ask myself if the things i want to see happen and the way i go about making them happen glorifying to God and will they make Him known (in a good way)? and then after much huff and puff because what i want is not happening right away i think about praying. not so that i would get my way but so i would understand God's way and what His plans are. so with all that said i need to get off this thing and go spend some time with the Lord.

noise, noise, noise...

i think i have trained myself to be busy because i am uncomfortable with rest. this may sound crazy but for the first time ever or in a really long time, the first thing i did when i woke up this morning was attempt to have a quiet time. well i got to be honest it felt kind of awkward. i sat in my room trying to decide what to read in the bible. then i thought about what i was going to eat for breakfast. and then i thought about what to pray for. started praying and then started thinking about what i was going to wear, what books in needed today, how much time i needed to get ready. then i remembered i was in the middle of a prayer.

it's so hard to be still in an instant culture.

i've really been wrestling a lot lately with this book called Emerging Worship along with it's companion book The Emerging Church. Basically these two books try to answer the question, "Where are all the twenty-somethings going for church if they are going at all?" these books suggest ways to possibly bridge the gap between the modern and postmodern church. i wrestle with this because i can't help but feel that the church i currently attend is just dripping with modernity. These books surprisingly solidified many observations i had made previous to reading them and that scares me. i recently attended a real men's Bible conference last weekend, an event my church does every year. we had two really dynamic speakers along with a wild game cook-out at the end of the conference. this conference is open to all men in the church and it's encouraged that dads bring their children but as i observed the men in attendance i think it's safe to say that me and one other guy were the only ones under twenty five. i don't think that's ok and that's why i wrestle. some could toss the lack of attendance up to a bad schedule (friday night and saturday morning) but the crazy thing is is that there is a church down the street with a saturday night service loaded with young people. with a town of more than three thousand high school kids i'm not sure we have made them a priority.

Great Expectations...

Today i had some grand plans to get things done. i got up to church just before ten and the plan was to first spend some time in the word supplemented by homework from my spiritual formations class. then i was going to work some more on my spiritual autobiography which is due next week. then i was going to putt around on the computer. i've been needing to transfer pictures from my camera to the computer and i need to start organizing all my worship songs into power point presentations. needless to say i was excited about my plan and was ready to get started. well, lets just say that because of an 11:00 auburn game i wasn't able to get everything done i had originally hoped to do. no worries mate and brent i am not bitter. i was still able to get other stuff taken care of.

turns out i wasn't the only one who saw a mountain lion the other day. i picked up the local paper this morning and on the front cover was an article about the sighting. apparently every once in a while a lion will find its way into flower mound to do a little shopping at super target and then wash it down with a frappucino from starbucks.

it's about 3:00 now and i just saw myself in the mirror. sad to say but it looks like i shaved in the dark.

lets see...

yesterday i saw a mountain lion on the side of the road just watching the afternoon traffic pass by. for a split second i had this mystic feeling like the lion was a dead relative or something. you know, like in all those little disney movies where the little native american boy sees a wolf run through the forrest and it's suppose to be like his dead grandpa or something. didn't see that one, ey? well i thought it was cool. not everyday a mountain lion graces the suburbs.

i got a wart frozen off my finger today.

i got my electric guitar back from the shop. i really need to buy an amp for that thing.

today was my last day at starbucks and i was just getting the hang of it too.

i think i'll go do some homework now.

josie and the pontiacs...

there was a time in my life when i actually wished i had one of those old junky cars that you could tell all those funny stories about. you know, you would be sitting around with your friends and someone would break out with "remember that time we (add your crazy car story here)" and then everyone would laugh. well after spending the afternoon on the side of highway 114 waiting for my dad to bring me a new altinator i decided that having one of those junky cars was not as much fun as i thought it would be.

during my drive to school yesterday i noticed that my battery light turned on and i watched the meter reading drop lower than normal. i had just replaced the battery not long ago so i didn't think it would be that. i went to class, had some coffee with some friends i hadn't seen in a year, found out i have to take an intro to fine arts class still which really bites considering i was an architect/interior design major for three years, and then went back to class. around 5:00 i hit the road to head home. the meter reading had dropped even lower. basically i was just running my car straight off the battery. i was probably about ten miles away from home when my car just turned off and i coasted to the side of the road. i called my dad who thankfully had gotten the part earlier in that day and was on his way to help me out. i passed the time by reading psalm 31, the owners manual for my car, along with old bank statements i found underneath my seat. my dad finally showed up and we replaced it right there on the side of the highway. now josie, thats the name of my car, is running fine.

in brief, here are a few other funny situations i've experienced with josie:
-having the horn honk everytime you made a left turn or even just changing to the left lane. definitely got some confused looks from other motorists as i unintentionally honked at them.
-watching my speedometer dance in sync with my turn signal.
-the classic having to crawl through the trunk to unlock my doors.

if you have some great car stories please share...