Road Trip

Imagine this, You are driving down the road in your car. The road stretches over farmland, cities, villages, towns, rivers, plains, everywhere. This road is not one straight line but breaks and splits in countless places along the way. At the end of this road lies the place you want to go. You know you want to go there and your whole purpose of getting in your car and driving was so you could fulfill this desire to be at this place. However, there are some problems with getting to this location. Firstly, you don't know how long this roadtrip will take. Secondly, you don't know which turns you must take to get there, only that the road you desire to take leads there. Thirdly, because of the recent price increase in petrol you may not have enough money to keep driving to the end of the road. Last and certainly not least, you don't want to go on this journey alone. You need a companion. Here is how I see my life's journey. I need someone to pay the petrol bill, Jesus paid it with His blood. I need someone to navigate for me, Jesus told me how to get there, He gave me my reconciliation with my all-knowing Father. I need someone to go with, Jesus sent me the Holy Spirit. So with what I've been given, though I still don't know how long the journey is I know when to turn and when to keep going straight. I don't need to look so far into the future because every now and again the Spirit gives me glimpses of it when He talks to me, and I've got a full tank of petrol to get me there just in time for the party to begin. After all, the place I'm going is waiting for me to get there.

School - A New Day Dawns

Another day at school. Today is different. I don't know why, maybe it was because the Cashmere Christian Club (CCC) had its second meeting today at lunchtime, maybe it was due to me getting up at 6:54am and spending 40mins in prayer, maybe it can be accredited to there being no milk in my house and therefore the toast I ate for breakfast (as oppose to cereal), or maybe my anticipation of YouthAlpha (and no cooking tea tonight) got the better of me, but something was different, about me or about the day. I had people asking me if I was on drugs, my more extroverted side came out in school. I had a bit to say at CCC and I wouldn't shutup during classtime. This is not abnormal for me to talk a lot but at school I am a lot more reserved than I would care to be at youthgroup. Just because I am not so close to those friends at school as those in the Youthgroup, and because I am not so interested in sharing my ideals with them. There was a permanent smile on my face today, now i'm asking, "did someone pray for me today?" because I feel so very different and I don't know just what to accredit it to. I don't usually spend time in prayer in the morning, merely because I do not get up early enough to. I do intend to get up early every morning and spend time with God, it just rarely happens and so I end up doing my devotionals after school. People may have heard me say that I feel so much better the days I do spend time with God in prayer, and it's true, everyday I make an effort seems to be an awesome day.

I spoke to one of my friends yesterday and they told me they were listening to videos on gaining confidence. I really liked hearing how they were putting an effort into strengthening one of their weaknesses.

It was Interesting to see some other faces at CCC today than the people last week, although I was still the only Opawian. My chemistry teacher of last year was there and he sat and discussed stuff with the small group I was in. It was really weird hearing him talk about God as oppose to science, and I really enjoyed hearing his opinion on things. Part of the discussion turned to saying about how we can tell if people are Christians by watching them. I remember someone once saying to me that if you ever have to tell someone you're a Christian then you probably aren't one. Why? Because people should know from your actions. This teacher said his wife used to work in a hospital and she would generally be able to tell who the Christians were because they stuck out, there was something different about them compared to other people. My great Uncle was an abulance driver for donkey's years in Nottinghamshire, England and he would almost always be able to tell if the person who died was a Christian or not just by the look on their face. The Christians tended to have quite a serene look and others looked rather ghastly. He reconded it was because just that instant before you died you would know exactly where you were going to. The actual whole discussion was about "Who Is God?" and it was led by my mate Jordan Rimell (couple of years younger than me) who attends Cashmere New Life, and another guy (didn't catch his name). It was really good to see him take the leadership role and lead a discussion along with his friend. In that Letter to Diagnetus I posted a while back the writer talked about how Christians were to the world like the soul is to the body; in the body but not of the body; in the world but not of the world. I believe that CCC is the soul of Cashmere High School and that we will be the glue that holds it together, that makes it an awesome place to be. Because that is our responsibility as Christians. To disciple by our actions, to evangelise by what we do. Atleast that's what I think.

Youth Alpha is on tonight, and because I really enjoyed it last week I am really looking forward to it again tonight. To be honest, I'm also looking forward to eating...

I read the Word for Today about half an hour ago and I really felt like I should make a small A4 size poster of the 12 essentials to putting God's Kingdom first. So I did, and now I'm going to put it on my wall to remind myself 12 things I need to be doing 24/7/52.
I've also got a big whiteboard at the back of my room which has a week and day planner on it that I change everyday to keep me more organised. It will be there until I buy my laptop in September (also when I create a new blog for my devotionals). At the bottom of the whiteboard I have written 5 verses to remember. Some of my favourite verses in the Bible. they are:

• Matthew 5:14-16
• Matthew 12:34
• Psalms 34:5
• Colossians 3:14
  
• Song of Songs 4:1
  

Four of those Five verses are pinned as posters to my wall somewhere or arather in my room. The Fifth, being Song of Songs 4:1 is not because I like the whole chapter and i'm not posting a whole chapter on my wall. I like that chapter because it is written like a love poem and chapter 4 is where the man tells the beautiful woman why he loves her. I like the NIV translation because it uses the word beautiful as oppose to fair. And beautiful is such an emotive word, atleast I think so. Two of the other verses are about being Light and Radiance. You will find the Matthew 5:14 verse at the top of this page. The last two are about feelings and Love. And although Songs is about love too these verses are shorter and one serves as a warning to be cautious, the second explains the importance of Love. I'll leave anyone who reads this blog to look up the verses for themselves if they desire to. Otherwise, I think I've started talking too much again.

Destination Destiny

Destiny is not about where you end up,
It's about the whole journey

I keep getting this sentence appearing in my mind these last few days. Thinking about this I remembered some lines in a poem I once wrote:

Teachers taught an amnesic learning
...forgotten the arts of true discerning

What we are taught is totally irrelevant to life, we're taught how important it is to have a wellpaid occupation, how important it is to make money, but we really need to be taught about what is right and what is wrong, because so many people no longer know that. Everytime we make that decision of right versus wrong we take a step, either forwards or backwards, on our destiny walk toward our destination. God's watching us now, we're making our lives now. If we think too much about something then it rules us, it's the same with what we do in life, if we're not living life right now, doing what we should be then how are we going to do that at the end?

My busy week

I thought I should update, why? Because I haven't updated in a while now, also i'm suppossed to be doing homework and this is my way of procrastinating.

I should be doing homework because I was busy Tuesday night, Work and Youth Group were on Wednesday night, Youth Alpha is on at 6:30 tonight, Koru is on Friday evening, I'm going Iceskating on Saturday and I have church and Work on Sunday. So practically Friday before Koru and now are the only times I have to do a weeks worth of homework.

My English seminar/speech is next week and because I was busy in the holidays when I was supposed to be writing it, I haven't written it. I don't dislike speeches but I don't have the time to write it, practise it and deliver it in a few days as well as do homework for my other subjects. And I consider Chemistry as my priority subject so the test tomorrow needs to take number one priority time. Plus if I don't do the seminar then I rely on my creative writing to get me through, and I love creative writing so i've got no problems there. I've been reading a little shakespeare lately because I'm studying the Merchant Of Venice for English and I opened up my sister's book A Midsummer Night's Dream to a random page and I really liked the two lines I read.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind (I:I:234-235)

I don't know what MSND is about but that little bit stuck right out and I liked it.

A christian group has started up at school, It's called the Cashmere Christian Club (CCC) I went today for its opening and overview and it sounds really good. I never realised how many of my friend's siblings were christians. It's inspiring. This was all after youthgroup last night where the group I was in talked about what we do as christians in the community, and when it came to school I had no answer. Now I will have one. The name CCC reminds me of the CCC (Christian City Church) that sells CDs you can buy at the Christian Superstore. I went there today to see if they sold Evermore cos I really wanted to buy their cd but the guy didn't know who Evermore were :'(

Anyway, that's about 2cents worth don't you think, I gotta keep the Blogging fire burning cos we're all starting to slacken off.

Goliaths

One thing that really stuck out to me at Xtend was when Mike Dodge was talking about Giant slayers. That for David to tackle Goliath he first had to practice against lions and bears. Lions and bears aren't easy to attack and he could well have died fighting them but it prepared him for fighting Goliath. And I wrote down my Bear on a stone and placed it in the pile of stones that wouls serve as reminders of us conquering our smaller problems that prepared us for bigger things in life. After that I imagined myself throwing my stone, from a sling, at this giant and as it was about to hit, with God's guidance of course, another giant with a big shield stood infront and deflected it off. So i wrote another stone and placed that too on the pile. Then imagined that I slung another stone and God directed it to the giant infront. Once he was dead my first stone continued and hit its target. It's not two birds with one stone but it's two Goliaths with two stones. Not bad aye? Later we prayed in small groups and I asked my small group to pray for my first Goliath, as they did i felt this incredible feeling of being lighter than the air around me. It lasted until I opened my eyes. Funny enough what they prayed for actually happened the next day and I was so surprised that now my whole mind is in utter confusion.

Xtend

I went to Xtend Retreat at Living Springs and i just learned so much. It's so weird how just a weekend away can bring me so much closer to God and to others. I don't often feel the Holy Spirit but it seems that both times i've gone to Xtend i have and I just love it. I've learned so much about my self, my realtionship with God and others, how I relate to others, how they relate to me, how i'm affected by them and so on. Xtend was not just about learning for me, it was about developing better relationships and I really believe I achieved that. I know that everything I do in life is something towards my Destiny and I really just want to thank God for talking to me at the retreat, preparing me for things to come and even helping solve things in my life now. I know I needed it, and so Does He.