Make a Joyful Noise

Being a small group leader has been SUCH a blessing to me in so many ways. First, I think I understand the gospel much better, and being an head-knowledge type of guy that I am, better understanding of the gospel is making me realize so many things and is changing my life. I always thought I had a good grasp on what Christianity teaches and what it means to me, but only recently I realized that I’ve just barely begun to nibble at the true beauty and goodness of the gospel. God is SO amazingly, ridiculously GOOD that I can’t even begin to fathom how crazy it is. I’m not saying it just because of all the worldly things he provides - he can take them all away just as easily as he has given them to me – but rather because it’s just crazy to think that someone who created EVERYTHING would care so much about me.

To be honest, I’ve had these similar emotions before – the overwhelming feeling of gratitude, amazement and joy accompanied by sudden eagerness to read the word and to pray. But what’s new for me and what’s really caught me off guard is that I find myself changing – slowly, but actually really changing. For an example, I’m not as nearly quick to anger as a year ago, nor am I as prideful as I was just a few months back. But I am not saying that I became a saint overnight or that I’m the nicest guy on the block now. I still have LONG ways to go in pursuit of the perfect righteousness Christ displayed in his life, but I think I’m moving in the right direction. That in itself is amazing to me because I’ve never actually felt like this before, and I think I’m beginning to understand what it means to have joy in the Lord. It’s just crazy good.

I also have to admit, though, that all this couldn’t have come about without my small group guys, and that’s another blessing I received through being a small group leader. Dick said this once, and I completely agree, that it’s not hard at all to be an ok small group leader, to just show up every week and teach what we learn in Berean. But it is extremely difficult to be a GOOD small group leader, to love the guys, to care for them like you care for yourself. It’s a challenge and I think it’s one of those challenges that benefits you more and more as you try harder and harder. Again, I’m so inadequate as a leader, but through the experience, I’m learning so much about what it means to really care for someone.

I just realized while typing all these thought out that the first semester of school is not even over yet. I still got so much of the year left, and that’s pretty darn exciting. Praise the Lord for all the blessings he pours out to me.

travel days

are tiring.

adios, cincinnati

slump

I think a slump is all because of your head. For an extreme example, think about basketball and lay-ups – I must have made at least couple thousands of lay-ups in my life. I know I can do it because I’ve done it before. MANY times. I also know my body is physically capable of making a lay-up or I would not have made any before. If my body is capable of it, but I can’t do it, then it must be my mind.

Now, I’m not missing my lay-ups (No, really. I’m not. I haven’t gotten THAT bad…yet), but I think it applies to almost all kinds of slump. This summer, so far, definitely has had its ups and downs, and though I would like to think that I’ve had a slump, if I think about it, not a whole lot has changed in my life between the ups and downs of this summer. In the end, I just learned a lot about myself – like how big of a slacker I am, for one. I’m all the way out in Cincinnati for work, and I’m writing my blog instead of actually working. Then again, I just cannot effing wait for this to be over. I want to be free again and never ever have to actually work. I’ve decided that being a college student is THE best thing you could be. I wish I could find a reason to stay longer. Maybe I’ll pick up a major… MCB? That should keep me in school for a while-pause-naht! (AL!)

For another, how much I hate being alone. Traveling for work is not THAT fun. It definitely has some perks like going to places where I would never pay my own money to go to. But I never knew how lonely I could get. It just sucks. I miss being around my friends a LOT. Co-workers are cool and all, but they aren’t my friends. So whenever I’m back, I always wanna just play with people, but my g’ness, these people are ALWAYS studying until I’m gone. Then they’re off to movies, rsf, etc. etc. Maybe they just don’t like me. ahahah. Damn. That would suck.

Anyway, I should stop rambling on. I’m just doing all I can to not work. I was hoping writing a blog post would clear my head, so I can actually start working, but too bad I just had to come up with an analogy involving basketball and talk about friends… Now I just wanna go play basketball with my friends! Dang it.

Ok. Time to actually start working. I’ve been in the office for only 4 hours now
Very well!(HAY!) Time to crank out some reports!

t-3

let me ask you something

Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage or does He give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does He give them opportunities to love each other?

I’m sure some of you know, but that’s a verbatim quote from Samuel L. Jackson’s character of God from the movie Evan Almighty. The first time I heard that, I liked it a lot. The second time I heard that, I thought “maybe I shouldn’t give it too much thought. It is, after all, a rather sappy line from a movie, and besides, we don’t actually control anything in this universe…” But the more I think about it, the more truth that statement holds. I think the idea is NOT that we gain patience or love on our own through our work in God-given opportunities, but that God develops patience and love through things in our lives.

All this is kind of random, but here’s the context from the past couple of days. At first, I found my co-intern SUPER annoying. I mean, he was a typical MBA, know-it-all, ass. But the worst of it was that he doesn’t know that he’s an idioit. I mean, no, he’s not really an idiot, but he doesn’t accept the fact that it’s ok for him to not know certain things that I do and that it’s ok if i’m better than he is at certain things. That makes him a big idiot. Anyways, he has been testing my patience to new limits.

Last night we went out to eat, and he drove us and parked in an area clearly designated no marking by the street signs. I said, “it says no parking. ” He parks anyways, puts the car in park and is about to get out when I say, again, “you can’t park here.” He says “what?” and stares at me. I point at the street signs. He says sheepishly, “oh, you should speak up. You’re so soft spoken, I can’t hear you.” At that point, besides the natural reaction of “WTF?!” I had two choices:

1)  Retort with, “speak up? First of all, I speak as clearly and loudly as you do. So maybe you should clean your ears. Secondly, I would think that a driver would READ the street signs. Not that hard. NO PARKING. see? or I suppose I COULD read out loud all the street signs to you if you’re having touble with it. SPEED LIMIT 35. see that? oh wait. SPEED LIMIT 35! Better?” 

or

2)  Say “sure,” and nothing else.

Yep. To my own amazement, I said “sure,” and nothing else. Not gonna lie. That took a lot out of me to resist putting that fool to shame, but I swear it’s almost as if God put him in my life and made him THAT annoying just to get under my skin… or to make me more patient and loving. I didn’t really think about things this way when I chose not to be a dick to him, but I really do have the desire to be more patient and loving, and I have been praying for it. I never even thought to connect the dots and see that God is answering my prayers, but (thanks to an email from ek) now I see that all I have to do is ask and be ready to receive. I just hope that I don’t lose the sight of whom I’m praying to and that this doesn’t turn into a temporary build-up that leads to an explosion of frustration.

Anyways, I can’t wait to be free from the internship. UGH. 14th. Countdown begins.

speaking of a countdown…
t-5

patience in a fast world?

I think I can save myself a lot of regret if I just stop myself for a minute and think before acting on impulse or emotions. I often say things that I regret saying half a second later. It’s really stupid. If I just stopped myself to think then I would not have said anything, and there would be nothing to regret about. I think I’ve actually gotten much better about it since high school days. But I still got long ways to go. Hopefully I can just continue to get better.

On a brighter note, my work in Ohio this week is going relatively well – that is, I’m getting a bit of in-hotel work time instead of chasing around a gang of workers to interview. I like working in the room better for so many reasons. It’s more comfortable. I have my laptop, so I can prepare my reports already. I can communicate better with the rest of the team since I can check my email every so often. Of course, I COULD also video chat, just chat, blog, nap and watch tv, but I’m a good intern, and I would never do that while I’m supposed to be working. Never.

Then again… someone also said ‘never say never’.

t-11