Last Saturday I went to a session on Do Hard Things, an idea, and now a book, and a "Rebeloution" started by Alex and Brett Harris, which is a "Teenage rebellion against low expectations" as they call it. It was pretty encouraging, to see how god can use you to do hard things, and how that benefits everybody. We picked up the book and a DVD of the conference (previously recorded... :-p), and I plan to read through it before I leave for school. Hopefully I'll be able to apply it... Well, I know I'll be able to apply it somehow, with God's help, since that is the premise.
Secondly, I'd gotten pretty frustrated with a certain someone just before that, because it seemed we were in a quandary and one of us needed to make a decision. That decision hasn't come yet, but my attitude has changed about it, or rather, gotten more firm in one direction, and I'm being intentionally vague. Partly because I'm not exactly sure what's ahead, partly because it may not matter, and partly because I'd like to protect the somewhat innocent and/or guilty.
Thirdly, because of these issues, I desired to talk with a pastor about them and ask for advice, being quite blunt and honest and hoping for a direction that I realized may not come. But, it turned out that that pastor was the one giving the sermon yesterday (we have seven pastors, btw) and it happened to be on faith, and how God uses it, specifically how our flawed faith looks for God to fix the situation, when really God wants to draw us closer to him and transform our faith into a faith in Himself, rather than His actions. It was pretty intense, cause it applied to my issues at the moment, and it seemed to apply to another friend's life, and it was the pastor I'd wanted to talk to. I spoke with him briefly after church was over and asked him for a meeting sometime this week, which I need to email him about presently. We'll see how that goes.
Fourthly, I was really feeling not too great about stuff and life and myself and wanting to smack a certain person over the head, or eliminate another from the picture to make things easier... which I would never physically do, I realized. Luckily, I was going out to play paintball after church, which I was looking forward to, and hoped it would lighten my spirits possibly. So, we got there, and it was looking good for a bit, we set up the teams, and as the rules were being explained, it got really dark... an ominous sign. Then we sent everybody to their bases, and while we were waiting to start, it started to drizzle, then sprinkle, and eventually downpour... We all got soaked. I had brought my electronic gun too, so I was keeping it dry under my shirt, which didn't help too much. We played on, slowly, and after about half an hour or 45 minutes, it let up, and we kept playing. All in all, at the end of the day, I was feeling slightly better, and was ready to tackle life again and write up this post, which I didn't get to because of other distractions later, but that's another story.
In summary, God is not against me, and however He works things will be OK with me. It's alright I guess to have the control taken out of my hands, but I really wish He would give some guidance to others on the situation I'm in. Unfortunately, I can't change them, only myself. So, I will continue to work on being a competent leader, and be diligent in school and in life, and in working on relationships, which are the most important part of life.
I saw a T-shirt at the Do Hard Things seminar that had on the back of it: "Live. Love. Lead." and on the front, something like "Man School". I want that shirt, because it is a great motto to live by, and one I'll be working on probably for the rest of my life, but most pressingly in the next coming months. I also thought that there a lot of other "L" words that might be useful for life, such as "Learn", "Laugh", "Listen", and many others. I'll be editing this post with more as I find more, feel free to comment with your own wholesome additions.
Stephe(L^3)
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