when i was a child, i talked like a child, i thought like a child, i reasoned like a child. when i became a man, i put childish ways behind me.
- I Corinthians 14:11
i love it when God shows you something new through an old familiar scripture. more on that in a sec.
someone smack me for not doing an update about my weekend yesterday.
so, so much to talk about and i dont do an update.
slacker for life. what can i say?
friday - i didnt really have anything to do on friday. let me correct that. i had plenty of things that i could have done. one in particular was go to a secular concert that i was invited to.
ever since i started growing closer to God, i havent really wanted to do any of the secular things that i have so recently found so appealing, like going to concerts. now, im all about some christian concerts, but i just dont have this burning desire to go to secular shows like i used to.
is that what paul was talking about when he wrote those words? i dont know, but i do know that God used those words to help me to understand what was happening in my life.
so, nicole and i decided to go hang out at kindred. let me just say that nicole is the coolest chick on the whole planet. she rocks so hard.
she's my inspiration in so many ways. i love her to death.
my prayer is that God sends someone like her into my life whenever i do settle down.
anyway, we walked around and talked for about two and a half hours. we listened to some music, read some books, listened to some more music, tried to play a keyboard, played with toys, and watched cartoons as well.
at one point, this guy started talking to nicole, and the first thing that he said to her was, 'i bet you never thought that you would see me in here with a bible in my hand, did you?'
i left her talking to him and went walking around some more, but apparantly he went to high school with her, and he wasnt exactly of the highest morals. she told me that the last time that she saw him was on graduation night when he was smoking a cigar and drinking.
in fact, his best friend was an atheist that nicole has told me about before. she told me that she witnessed to this guy and his best friend a lot and he finally started believing that there was at God at least.
well, some of her witnessing to this guy had apparantly rubbed off on him and he had gotten saved. and he wanted to tell her all about it.
how cool is that? she got to see that seed that she planted in him grow to its fullest extent. not everyone gets to see that. in fact, most people dont.
i told you that nicole rocked.
i finally ended up buying two cds, one praise and worship cd from a group called passion and the new skillet cd.
i also bought this totally kickin' automobile sticker. its the face of Jesus, and its a shiny metallic color. i put it on my drivers side window. now, every time i get in or out of my truck or just look out of that window, i see the face of Jesus. how totally and incredibly cool is that?
saturday - i got up early saturday morning in an effort to do my taxes. i almost finished after traveling all over the country trying to find some forms when i realized that i didnt have all of my information from my school. oops. i'll finish them later.
then, i basically sat around and read for the rest of the day until time to go to bible study. it was johns dad's birthday, so we stopped at kindred (i love that store) and picked him up a little something.
at bible study, we read in the book of acts again. we read about the day of pentacost where they were speaking in tongues. and being a group of mixed denominations the topic immediately turned to speaking in tongues and thats what we spent the whole night talking about.
there was a guy there who knew a lot about it. and he explained it in a way so as not to offend anyone, but in essence he said that the reason that i dont speak in tongues is because i am not spiritually mature enough to handle it.
i dont buy that. what about men like billy graham who is a baptist minister. are you going to tell me that you are more spiritually mature than billy graham? i dont think so. also, there is a story in corinthians about some men becoming saved and then paul puts his hands on them and they immediately began speaking in tongues. how can they be spiritually mature enough to handle it if they just became christians?
he had a lot of good points, and it all sounded good. just one problem, 90% or more of what he said was his own opinion and not based on scripture. i dont know about you, but i base what i believe on scripture.
im not saying that i dont believe in speaking in tongues. quite contrary, i think its a very real and special thing. i just dont think that its for everybody, and i dont see where in the scripture that it says otherwise. in fact, the bible commands us to be Christ-like, and nowhere have i read where it said that Christ spoke in tongues.
sunday - church was really good again. in sunday school we finished up talking about noah and what happened after the flood had subsided. in worship service brother gary was back and he continued with his series of sermons on sin. this week we looked at the consequences of sin, which of course is death. but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. isnt that just amazing?
fire by night practice went well too. for the third week in a row, everyone was there. which was a very good thing considering that our first performance is this wednesday.
at practice, jessie told me that kayla, that i met at the skillet show, was back in town this weekend. so, when i got home from practice i called her and talked to her for about 30 minutes before it was time to go back to church. i called her back after church at about 7:30 and we didnt get off the phone until almost midnight. my first impression of her at the show was right, shes an incredibly sweet and funny person. and here's the really cool part, she's just as on fire for God, if not more, than i am.
i think i know now why all of my previous relationships havent worked. well, other than the fact that i make terrible decisions about who i should date. its because i never put God in the center of the relationship. dont get me wrong, everyone that i have ever dated has known about my beliefs. it normally just wasnt talked about very much. to make a relationship work, three people have to be involved, and God has to be at the core of the relationship. i realized this while i was talking to kayla. we spent most of the time talking about God and what he was doing in our lives. i told her about the dream that i had the night of the skillet show. it freaked her out almost as much as it had me.
we have a lot of stuff in common and i can definitely see us spending some time together. in fact, she convinced me to go to the audio adrenaline show last night just because she was going to be there with jessie.
monday - i got to the auditorium about 30 minutes before the show was supposed to start and bought my ticket. i walk to my seat and who do i see sitting close to where my seat is, jessie but kayla wasnt with her.
she said that they had waited on her a while, but she was probably just late and would be there eventually. shortly after that, i went down on the lower section to see the opening band, fono. they're from england and are actually pretty good, kinda reminded me of the goo goo dolls meets virgos merlot. then i went back to try to find jessie and see if kayla was with her. i couldnt find either one of them. the next band was a dance/pop band called raze, definitely not my kind of music. they were good at what they did though, and that was dance. they also knew how to get a crowd moving. they had the whole place jumping.
after that i decided to go up front to see audio adrenaline, even though im not a big fan of theirs. it was a pretty cool show. they played a couple of songs that i know, and i've never seen that much music come out of five guys playing casio keyboards either. oh and they whipped out the sprinkler dance.
so funny.
the lead singer looks just like scott from train. i almost thought that it was him for a minute. i promise you, they could be brothers.
its a common known fact to those who are lucky enough to actually know the chadster that he is too nice and puts way too much faith in people, especially people that he doesnt know.
as i am walking out of the show i smiled at a black man standing on the street corner. all i did was smile. apparantly, he took this to mean that he could try to scam me out of some money. he tried the usual, 'my car is broken down right up the street' routine. i told him in the nicest possible way that i didnt have any money. which, i guess is a lie, i had $4 in my wallet, but i didnt want to give the man my last $4 and have him use it to buy beer or drugs with. maybe i should have offered to go buy him some food or something. i felt bad for it afterwards, but you just never know with those situations.
anyway.
almost died in a car wreck on the way home. gotta love it when people nearly side swipe you at 11:00 at night on a monday.
it was a fairly decent show. not in my top ten or anything like that, but it was decent. i cant hear out of my left ear now, and i was dissappointed that i didnt get to see kayla. she was the main reason that i went.
its okay though. she's coming back into town this weekend and i should get to see her on friday and saturday and possibly even sunday.
i cant wait.
anyway.
fire by night's first performance is tomorrow night. i am so excited and cant wait to actually get up there and perform what we have worked so hard on for these last few months. i have been assigned to explain one of the dramas. i wasnt sure what i was going to say about it, but God told me what to say while i was taking a shower this morning.
you've heard that God works in mysterious ways. well, he also works in mysterious places.
pray that we will be witnesses for him and that he will work through us. pray that we touch people's lives and speak to their hearts. and pray that everything goes well.
i'll tell you all about it next time.