The Truman Show

Do you ever feel like life is a huge drama and you are just another person in it? I have quite a few times felt that way. That everything that happens in my life is staged or fake, put together by a director and when it involves other people they are simply "in on it" and I am the only one who isnt. At times I think that no way this can not possibly be real, what are the odds. Stuff that happens it just doesnt seem like it should, could, or would. I throw a football and it just happens to bounce off the ground and go straight up and hit the mirror on a car and break it off, what are the odds? I always wondering when things like that happen if someone secretely is video taping my reactions and broadcasting them to the world. Probably not. But sometimes that is what it seems like, that I am put into situations just to see what my reaction will be like and how I will react. Hence comes the title The Truman Show. Sometimes I really feel like Truman when he begins to figure out he is on TV and everybody is 'in on it' thats just how I feel sometimes.

The Founding Fathers and a quote from Mindy

I was looking into whether the founding fathers of America were chrisitan or not with Mindy for a U.S. Government project and Mindy said something that really struck me. We were talking about how most of them did not ever say that they were christian and in fact were very much self proclaimed Deists but how alot of the way they lived was based on christian principles and they would acknowledge that. Benjamin Franklin, a deist, said that christian morals and living seems to be the best way to live ones life and yet he himself was not a christian. Almost all of these founding fathers lived very good lives and had alot of integrity. But Mindy said something that got me thinking. she said "You can live good and not be a christian. You can even live the way a christian would and not follow Jesus. Christianity is more than just how you live but is a belief in Jesus as savior." I don't know what it was about it but it hit me like a ton of bricks. Maybe I have been so concerned with living "right" that I have forgotten my savior. Its not about our works, although that is part of it, it is about our faith and trust in Jesus as the savior. So just because the founding fathers lived an upright life, that doesn't make them christian. Maybe for too long I have based people as christian or non-christian by how they live. When really you can live a good and upright life and not follow Jesus at all.

A Generous Orthodoxy

Well I have been reading the book A Generous Orthodoxy and if you haven't read it, I would highly recommend it. It is very well written I have found and it is full of some amazing stuff that really gets you to think. I am only a few chapters into it and I can already tell that it will be a book to challenge me. He asked the question "If Jesus were here today would he be christian?" and he said something interesting. He answered and said that he doesn't think Jesus would be caught dead being considered a christian. Today the way christian is defined and the way christians act. It was just an interesting thought the he stated and it got me thinking. All of this is to say if you haven't read the book then you should.

Daniel, Peter, And Job

"Daniel broke the king's decree, Peter stepped from the ship to the sea, there was hope for Job like a cut down tree, I hope that there's such hope for me." I hope that there is such hope for me. Daniel broke the king's decree and was thrown to the lions and didn't get devoured. Peter walked on water and when the doubt came Jesus himself helped him up. Job endured his life being torn apart and it was all allowed by God and Job still praised God. Could I do the same, praise God after tons of shit happens to me. I hope and pray that if and when the trials come I can face them as Job and Daniel and Peter but sometimes I doubt and don't feel helped up. When I have stood up for God I get pushed back down. When the trials come I don't praise Him still. It so hard, sometimes I feel like I don't have a relationship with God but a struggle with Him. But it sounds so bad to say a 'struggle' it sounds negative and it isn't necessarily. Maybe I mean just that I struggle with the faith. I have doubts, fears, and I lack wisdom so it is my struggle with God. And besides saying relationship with God is so cliche. I think sometimes I just have to have the faith of a child in the darkest times. In the times among the lions, and walking on the stormy sea, and when shit happens to me maybe I should just have the faith of a child and just believe that He's going to be there for me. A child doesn't doubt that in the bad times the parent will be there, they know. Maybe faith like a child is required. Even in darkness the light still shines.

The Beginning Of The End

School started yesterday. I was actually dreading it. I guess I just wasn't really ready to go back. Its going to be a hard and at the same time an easy year. I have to take algebra 2 again and that is quite depressing. But I pray everyday that God will give me strength to work through the math. But at the same time I am having to pray for dillegence to do work in my multiple study halls. I have always struggled with being able to do work in them, and this year it seems as though I am definetely going to need the time to do homework but I always seem to not work during study halls so I really am going to need to learn to focus on the task at hand and get it done. 179 school days from now I will be graduating, that is a pretty crazy thought. I honestly growing up never thought I would make it through school. But I guess I was wrong.