August 09 thoughts

Hello readers,

well its been about 2 months since my last post, so I will post something!
lots has happened in the past 2 months for me. well I finished up my spring semester at school in June, meaning I have only 10 classes left until I have my Bcomm. I will have a bachelors degree in 9 months! also I turned 22...ok thats not that exciting, kind of crazy to think actually. 22, wow. so i have been working the past month at TransCanada, good times, its been a great opportunity with Employee Communications, but sadly my summer student experience only has one month left! (well, maybe i can extend this job into a part time role in the fall like I did at Nexen!)
hmm, well Ryan got the job at the baptist church in lethbridge! congrats to him, Nat and Ryan will be moving down there at the end of the month and get thier house in November! yay for them! I will miss my little Abi and Silas though, as well as of course Nat and Ryan.
it will be wierd having them move out and not live here (tho Ryan has been living mostly in lethbridge lately). my mom and step-dad came up for a visit in June as well, always good to see them.

went camping in Sandy McNabb first weekend of July with some of my friends, went for a bike to downtown the week before, and attended some work functions during Stampede week!

also I bought a new phone last week, got an LG Rumour through Solo mobile, its a pretty cool phone and a cheaper plan than the ripoff that called itself Rogers.

hmm, oh I went to camp for a week, as a cabin leader for Junior camp, good but wild times. I wasn't feeling great going into it, but got through and enjoyed leading the boys in my cabin, and there were alot of them (11 boys with 2 leaders for our cabin). It was great to get back out to camp, it was still tiring, but its a different tiring than sitting in an office all day!
It would have been great to be out at camp for the whole summer like I used to do, but those days have passed unfortunately(stupid need for money), but I still enjoy going out for a week or two during the summer.

Right now it is a long weekend, an extra long weekend for me as friday was a designated day off at TransCanada, and monday is a holiday. 4 day weekend, I didn't end up going out of town, as much as I thought I should, but thats perfectly fine. its funny how even taking a weekend off ( a long one even) you still end up busy, or at least I did. not too busy, but not extremely bored either. Friday was good because it was a sleepin, a relax no rush day, I went for a bike and had a little devo at a bench in fish creek on a beautiful day. then helped dad with some yard work and spent time with family, then watched football. its nice being able to just do whatever, not trying to get heaps done in one short period.

saturday was the same deal, I slept in, was expecting to fill in for a soccer game but it got cancelled. my day opened up even more. I went out into the heat and wandered around best buy, eventually buying a microsdhc card for my cell phone, getting a starbucks and heading home, only to head to Shawns to hang out for a bit. played some NHL 09 and went home, where I enjoyed homemade burgers (via my dad) and watched the Stamps-Riders game.
I guess that is a little busy, but not organized busyness, just freeflowingness (i know, thats not a word).

today I went for lunch with my friends Jake and Jeanie then played a game called discipleship at Sam's place for the afternoon, enjoying the beautiful weather (we played outside) and hanging out. I went for dinner at Montanas with my Dad, Nat, Ryan and the kids. also made plans with Jake and Jeanie to go to Banff tomorrow and then meet up with some of the guys about a campin trip next weekend.

anyways i guess my point is that I'm glad I decided to hang around town this weekend, glad to have a mid-summer long weekend to enjoy, and thankful for friends that had the same mindset on this long weekend!

hmm well some other thoughts I guess.
In anyones spiritual journey (or whatever you want to call it) there are good times and bad times, peaks and valleys. over the years I have had some peaks and valleys, but over time it gets less extreme, or at least it as for me. in the Good times, you feel great, all facets of life seem to be going well, and most importantly you have a passion for God, unfortunately this doesn't always stay the same. Sometimes we have rough times, times when we just aren't feeling it, we aren't sure what we are doing, where we are going (this isn't always bad though!) and maybe feel God isn't right there or that lifes trials are hitting us all at once....
wait - sometimes you are thinking about something or in this case writing and a song comes on or something happens that fits, right now is one of those times. I am writing about good and bad times, and just noticed that a song called "the lining is silver" by Relient K is playing. part of the chorus is "isn't it nice to know, that that the lining is silver, isn't nice to know, that were golden". cool. (well at least i think so!)

in bad times, things seem to suck, but we have to remember that God is there for us, and that these trials or tough times we are going through will pass. That God has the vision, we don't need to know where this is going (though in the tough times we really Want to know), we just need to trust God. The lining is silver, take the positives out of it, remember what you have, remember the good times and know and trust that there will be good times again. The song that is on right now is "Praise you" by Fatboy Slim. haha. anyways we need to praise God in all of our 'seasons', part of the words in this song are "we've come a long, long way together, through the hard times and the good". wow.

another song, and some people say this one is overplayed, but I think its for a reason, it speaks so much to us about life and us and God in that life. The song is Blessed be your name, I really love this song, its about us praising God, at all times everywhere, including in the desert place.

Ok so the reason I was thinking about this, was that the other day I was thinking that maybe I'm in a spiritual rut, I had slipped on some things, like prayer. upon realizing this, I got to thinking about how our rough or downtimes end/start.
Do our bad times end when we start to figure out whats going on? or does God prompt us in subtle ways we don't realize, so that we come back. when we are in a good time, does it end because we realize we are doing good and get overconfident and complacent? I don't know but that has to be part of it. Another part has to be that it just is human nature, look at the old Testament, we would come back to God, then go away, then back again, realizing at different points.

bottom line, it happens, but I think we can actively do things to get out of the tough times, but not always, and often we don't feel like it, and eventually God (who is faithful) will nudge us out of the spot, but that doesn't mean we should wait. I've seen people have trouble and instead of seeing God pulling them back, they saw it as something else and thier faith crumbled.

another song playing on my stereo, Citybus Lovesong by NewWorldSon (one of my latest favourite bands to listen to, since YC), in the chorus: "where would I go without you, without you to guide my way? where would i be without you, I'd be wandering day by day"
where would I go without you God? I would be wandering day by day, in a far off worse state then I am, if still on earth.

Ok, one last thing (this has turned into a much longer post than I expected, a brain dump of sorts).

I started writing in a journal each day as a practice when I went to Australia, so to remember my times and have been reading through some of my writings that last little while. such good times, I'm so glad to have the pictures, the DVD and my journalling (as well as reunions with Capers friends) to look back at the great times had and things learned. keeping a journal is a good idea, even though sometimes its like a chore. if it becomes a habit (which apparently happens after 2 weeks or so?) it is a nice memory and way to look back to see how much we have changed. anyways its been almost a year to the day (a year to the day on friday!) since I got back from Australia. one year ago I was exploring Sydney one last time on my own before returning for one last visit to Capernwray to see my friends and get my luggage.
oh the memories!
another odd coincidence, our waiter tonight was from Australia.

as always, thanks for reading (and congrats for getting through all that) and I hope some of my thoughts got you thinking!

Adam

End of May update and randomness

hello readers,

apparently I should post again, so I will!
I am sitting here waiting for my Laundry to finish so I can put it away and go to bed.
anyways heres the latest. My Flag football season starts this monday! I am excited about that, it should be great. we play 15 games, mostly on mondays, and I am playing Cornerback.
I also started spring school, which has been ok. its a whole semester packed into 5 weeks of school. I had a group meeting today (a saturday!) at the Uni and it seems I have projects/assignments due about every week. midterms start the week after this week.
Also I started at TransCanada a few weeks ago. I am happy with the new job, and the people I am working with, which is important. right now I am working a few days a week.
hmm, what else?
oh I went to YC with my youth group last weekend, and it was awesome. of course I was really tired and sore after. sore from YC? yep thats right. I guess it was getting a few hours of sleep each night on a hard church basement floor, doing 100 pushups saturday night, and jumping and waving my arms etc for a bunch of concerts. the weekend was great, a few great concerts, a few dissapointing concerts and a few suprises. Relient K was a bit of a dissapointment, one of my favourite bands, maybe it was the sound in the arena, maybe I wasn't in the mood for Relient K, I think they played alot of thier slower songs though. the ones i knew were good though. Red was fun because some of the youth and I made up dances as we didn't know the songs. Thousand Foot Krutch was great as expected. Pillar wasn't great and niether was Grits. Family Force 5 was fun and NewWorldSon was probably the best (and suprise for me, I hadn't heard them before). Reggie Dabbs spoke and was great and the worship was alright (the songs I knew, or at least that we could see the lyrics for, were good...but that wasn't many unfortunatly). anyways it was a fun weekend as it always is.
Big news this past week was for my brother-in-law Ryan. He got a job as the Youth pastor at a church in lethbridge! the job search is over! I am happy for him and the family to get the job, but it will be sad with them leaving. It will be wierd not seeing them and the kids all the time, but it is a great opportunity for them. of course they need to find a place to live there now.

also, i bought Grey cup tickets this morning, for my dad and I. Grey cup 2009! whoooo. Go Stamps Go!

so some random thoughts....sometimes we try to fit God to terms so we can compare him or so that we can figure out who he is. God can't be put into a box. trying to put God into anything is like trying to put a backpack inside itself. you can try and try, but you just can't. there are many words we use to describe God, but a few words can't be used to define who God is. God is love as many say, but theres so much more to God. God is everywhere, everything, inside us. his Holy Spirit is inside us and flows out of us when we let him. Athiests try to prove God doesn't exist, how can they do that, aside from personal judgement and opinion. they even try and force their beliefs on others, that sounds alot like the thing they are fighting against. Often people try to fight against things either because they think it is wrong, or because they are scared it might be right and want to wipe it out so they don't have to worry it is right.

Jesus would tell us the only things harder then hate is love, and harder then war is peace. Love your neighbor as yourself, one of the biggest things Jesus stressed was love. Love. do you love yourself? What does that mean? maybe its that you care about yourself and want the best for yourself. Now even though you love yourself, you may not like yourself at times. how does that work? lets say you do something and immediately regret it, don't want to face the consequences, maybe you don't like yourself at that moment. "stupid me." but you still love yourself, you still want the best, that is why you are upset, you know you could do better etc. this works the same way with other people, or at least it should I guess (sometimes we need God's help to start to love even the most annoying people in our lives).
Think about the people you don't like, why don't you like them? because of something they did or they are doing. Maybe you still love them, not in a "love=marriage" sort of way, but in a way that means you care. You want the best for them, you see what they are doing and that they would be better off doing something different. sometimes I run across people who are difficult, I should care that they get better, not hate them for who they are. its like loving someone who beats thier kid. That person is hard to love, but think about it this way. You want the best for that person, you may not like thier actions ( I hope...), but you know they could be better off, and you hope they can change, you may do something, say something or pray for change, bottom line, you want the best in the situation. then again, maybe you don't always feel this way, you think the person should be hanged, shot, whatever. but think about that, should we lose hope in anyone, where do you draw the line...

heh. well there was some ranting for you. comment if you have any thoughts, i hope this at least got you thinking, whoever is reading this.

thanks for reading,

Adam

MAY update

Well it certainly has been awhile since I posted on here. So here we go.

lately I finished up my winter semester at U of C, doing well in all my classes. it was an easier semester than the fall semester, and less busy. Also I am done working at Nexen. my contract ran out at the end of April, and I have gotten a job at TransCanada Pipeline. awesome. I had an orientation yesterday and start work on Monday the 11th.
I am also playing flag football this summer on a team with some friends from my church! I start my spring semester in a few weeks, it will last til the end of June.
One of my friends from Capernwray, who lives near Edmonton, came down and we hung out for a few hours on saturday, it was great to catch up!

hmm, what else...
I finished reading "Mere Christianity" by CS Lewis, it is a great book, but it takes a while to get through as it is very deep and caused me to think alot as I read it. I would definitly reccomend it. Its nice to read while sitting on the train to/from school. I have also been occasionally listening to a podcast from Westside Kings church.
I have had many times in the last few months that I got to thinking about stuff that I shouldve written in here, but now I forget what most of them were. listening to podcasts, reading spiritual books, and sitting on transit for what seems like hours gets me to thinking often about life and spiritual things, which is defintely a good thing.

one thought from some podcasts was about science and religion. there is always a conflict with them it seems, but sometimes there shouldn't be. They are two ways of looking at things, or two different answers to the same question. One example was looking at a car. Science like the parts of the car that make it work the engine, parts etc, while religion is more like the map that is found in the glovebox. Its a map that you can follow, in different ways, and your not sure where it leads, and you don't have to follow it.
Maybe I should throw spirituality in there, because religion is often referred to as control etc, you can be 'religous' about things that may or may not be something God wants, like getting an oil change ever 5000km. it can be a good thing or bad thing. (well, I think changing your oil is a good thing to do, but you can be religous about it). As far as spirituality goes, I want to let the Holy Spirit within me have control. to let it slowly change me into the man God wants me to be. I would hope that things I do aren't just because I am religious.
One of my friends says sometimes in reference to me 'oh thats because he is religous', I'm not sure what to think of that. I would hope that things I do are because my heart and will, which are being transformed by God, want to; what I do for God shouldn't be just because that is what is what I am expected to do by religion or people around me. I do want to have an impact, but its like giving a dog a muzzle. Just controlling something, like sin, doesn't get rid of the desire or issue in the heart. if a dog wants to bite someone, putting a muzzle on it won't make it not want to. Whats wrong with just putting a muzzle on the dog? The dog will be miserable and is being forced to be good. The dog needs to change its will so that it won't have that desire.

Going back to a persons perspective, you can limit yourself from doing bad things, but if you still have that desire to do them, you won't be as happy as you could be. Can we change our will? not easily if at all, but I think God can. Jesus came and pointed to our hearts, the heart of the laws, the heart of what God wants. God wants us, completely, wants us to love him and to be with him.

So am I saying that we shouldn't try to limit our inner selfish desires? no, if we embrace our sinfulness, then basically we are saying to God, 'no, I don't want to change'. its a tough thing, and there is no line. we always seem to want to get as close to the line as we can with God/authority etc. how much can i drink before I am dishonouring to God? how far can I go with a girl? how selfish can I be? which religion is the right one? how much money do i HAVE to give to God? These are the kind of questions people ask, its sorta in our nature I guess.
It kind of goes back to the science and religion things. Maybe they are valid questions, for certain things. Science is for the concrete stuff, religion/spirituality maybe is more for thinking, discussing and hope. The bible isn't about finding more rules that we have to follow, but is open to having discussion about and thinking about the meaning behind what God wants us to get out of it. It's inspired by God, and we should look to God when reading it. It shouldn't be about listening to what someone we know says and not questioning it. It is up to you to think about what you believe and what you believe about God.

Anyways that was quite the rambling, congrats to you if you got through it. just some thoughts as I typed, I hope that maybe it got you thinking as you read it.

thanks for reading as always,

Adam