Media purge

Wow, so a lot has happened in the last day. At the last pastor meeting, I asked them how you "give something over to God". In my mind, all I've ever heard in relation to how that is actually done involves you working harder and trying to fix your problem. Well, we scrapped the whole meetings agenda and talked about my video game addiction. It ended with them referring me to a christian counselor.

So on wednesday, I drove up to ohio christian university and met for an hour with Jim. He asked me questions about myself and my problems. The one thing he asked me to do was to count the cost. He pointed out the story of the rich young ruler who asked Jesus , "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" That man wasn't willing to give up everything for Jesus. Then Jim asked me "How much are you willing to give up to beat this thing?" I responded, "Everything, but I hope I don't have to." He didn't say this, but I automatically knew that I was that rich young ruler. I had a great many possions and would rather hold on to them than give them up to be a better christian.

So I went home and counted the cost. Verses kept flying at me like, "Whoever wants to follow me must deny himself, pick up his cross and come follow me." And "redeem the time, for the days are evil" and "if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better to enter into eternal life halt than for the whole body to perish in hell."

That was wednesday. On friday, I moved my gaming computer to my office and removed all games from it. I donated my TV to the wheelersburg church. I canceled my tv and internet subscription and also donated my ps3 to the youth group. In short, I have no technology in my house anymore. There is no internet in my house, nor a tv. I have "cut off my hand".

That's how far I'm willing to go. It's been a day since I've played video games. I will literally force myself to do something else.

So what's holding you back? Are you willing to give that over to God?

Back to regular postings

Ok, now that life has calmed down a bit, I'm ready to get back into the habit of regular postings. Lots of really cool things have been happening in my life!

God is really working on my life skills right now. I finally finished the tentmaker's training program called the nehemiah institute. It focuses on ministry managment and such. Part of that training involved making plans of action. Setting a goal, and making it happen. Well, I'm going to be integrating that into my own life. I'm going to make plans of action for the following things

Keeping my house clean

Getting/staying healthy

Practicing the spiritual disciplines (bible reading, prayer, etc)

many POA's (plans of action) for my ministry as well

I've stopped rotating where I spend my office hours and will now only have one office. This is something I've wanted for a while, and a recent confrontation from my pastors helped make it happen. I wasn't being reprimanded, but they basically said I need to spend my time more efficiently. One reason this came up is because I've had a book on my to do list for a while. I could've read this book a long time ago, but haven't. So, we're making changes in the way I spend my time and I think it's for the best.

The youth group also has a new website! thesceneministry.com This is thanks in no small part to my new cousin in law (that's a real thing, right?) Jenifer Slaughbaugh. She's married to my cousin, Nick. She helped set up the framework, then trained me on how to upload my own content. I must say, that I really appreciated her help and the website looks great! It fullfills all the needs I had for a website and then some. Check it out!

I've also started a new diet. It's called ediets. Long story short is that they send me all the food I get to eat. If I eat only what they send me, I lose weight. I've already lost 10 pounds on it and I haven't even been holding to it as well as I could. Case in point, I went to this training seminar last week and couldn't follow it at there. I've also not been excercising due to my lingering cold. But I'm healed up now and primed to go for a long time eating healthy and working out. I hope to be much thinner by the summer

Hmm, what else has been going on? I've been pursing some females through eharmony. There is at least one that I will probably be meeting here pretty soon, once I get the nerve up. It's been nice to try eharmony, just cause I don't make the effort to go places where I can meet girls. I don't know though, I'm at the point where I'm enjoying learning how to take care of myself better. How can I take care of someone else if I can't take care of myself? It seems to me that God is grooming me to be a better groom. Ahh? you see what I did there? I made a pun!

I'm still loving my tempurpedic bed, but for some reason, I've been remembering all my dreams lately! It's a weird thing when you remember your dreams. The subconscience is a strange beast. My working threory is that my lingering sickness keeps me from breathing well at night, so I constantly wake up in the middle of the night and thus remember my dreams.

Also, I am totally buying the new ipad when it comes out this friday! Thank you God for sending people into my life to teach me how to manage money! Well, that's all for now. Stay tuned!