quotes from Ryan while firing his lazer gun

"I'm sorry, dude, I just blew out your windshield."
"I'd sign your clip board, if you weren't dead."
"That's the red-hot heat of freedom."

my favorite quotes from Paul (he doesn't have a gun because he's a wuss among wusses)

"Ahhhh son of a...!"
"Wha'd you do?!"
"Ah poop..."

my favorite quote from me

"I'm gonna make the champaign bottle pop, then do a belly flop, and I'll raise all the crops."

I’ve heard people say that the grace of God saved them from this or that. I’m realizing nowadays that the grace of God has been saving me for my entire life. I grew up, by the grace of God, in a house with a stable marriage. I always seemed to meet people when they were being reformed. I was the only child of five to never see my father have a drink, I only knew him as an overbearing Christian instead of a raging drunk. By God’s grace he was saved and he decided that he really wanted to try and witness to me as a boy. By God’s grace I read the bible while my mind was still really forming and it shaped a large part of my thinking. I got to know my brother after he straightened his life out - after the drugs, the drinking, and the promiscuity. He learned true self discipline, by the grace of God, and he was a model for me. I got to know people after they made mistakes and they took time to forewarn me, to share (some without knowing it) the grace by which they were saved from self destruction. When I really got serious and gave my life to Jesus is when I was given the eyes to see this. The months leading up to that pivotal moment I wanted a sign. No sign that I wanted was given. And why should there have been? I had signs my whole life, the people were the road signs leading me to God. God didn’t owe me what I considered a sign. He gave me a lot and then He said, "If you want Me, I must have you."
Let me tell you, I was always told that I was motivated, smart, and just a "well put together" person. I had gifts and I wasted them for a while. I had no direction. Gifts don’t give direction and without purpose all those gifts are worthless. Telling yourself that you’ve got it all together just doesn’t cut it some days, does it? I didn’t then and I don’t now but I know God does. Often we hear the testimonies of the people on their death beds or out on the street with no one and nothing who suddenly meet with God in a powerful way. Amen to them. They’re blessed because they knew they had nothing. I wonder about the "well put together" people who have good backgrounds, good personalities, and brains. I must say, I read "to whom much is given, is much expected" (C.S. Lewis) and that hit me square in the face. The "good" people are the ones who have so much potential, born to be leaders but unfortunately the gifts became a distraction from the purpose until life became the cultivation of those gifts. The "gifted people" seem so close but they couldn’t be further. I brushed off God so many times because, well, I knew better, because I had it all together. I don’t need to display my weakness like those people, I’d think. That was me. By the grace of God everything started to feel empty, I felt as though I was losing myself when I started seeking God. He was showing me a life with gifts and other stuff but not Him. The more empty I felt the more I began to rely on praying and learning more about Him until I finally hit bottom. I was empty and all I could do was look up and see Jesus. The bible tells us we’re evil and anyone who has screwed up their lives with drugs or whatever will look at that with a better chance of admitting that the greater part of their lives has been self serving and empty. They’re more apt to listen, they’re more appreciative of God’s saving grace.

I pray that God will help me appreciate and love Him more because that is my purpose. My identity is in Christ and my personality is another color God wants to show the world of Himself. The more I love Him, the more I am sanctified, the better I can serve Him. My goal is what He set for me, to be perfect. By His love it will be possible, how close I come to it in this life is up to me.

I'm back because I'm bored but I'm just sitting here thinking about God and how great He is. Throughout my life I've been to a few different churches, some horrible, some okay, some awesome. I've met some people who simply carry the fragrance of divinity that only a person who is submitted to Him can carry. I could never put words to it and when I came to college I met a few people like that at the same time. I used to pray to God when I was very young to take my life, I used to beg Jesus to use me and I had no idea what I was asking. People have been praying for me my whole life and I consider all the times I felt God speaking to me as answered prayers. God was answering the prayer I prayed as a young boy. A cynic might say "why would God answer a prayer when you didn't understand it?" Let's be honest, we don't fully realize the magnitude of what we're asking when we pray to God for things. I can say 'God bless this person' and God hears that and He will answer that prayer in His time but I have no idea what He will do.

Faith isn't about seeing the results, it's about raising your vision.

When the Lord revealed Himself to Saul and blinded him, He told him to go to Tarsus. The Lord then went to one of His followers, Ananias and told him to "put his hand on him (saul) that he might receive his sight" (Acts, 9:4-16). There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this but I feel compelled to focus on a few things. One, God could have restored Paul's sight and sent him on his merry way but He didn't, He sent him to one of His servants. He wanted to use one of His own to display His power. He also made Paul, a persecutor and murderer of Christians into a "chosen vessel." Ananias argues with God (I try it so often, angels must've laughed at my expense more than once) and says in, King Brooklyn version, "hey, I hearda dis guy and he's a section eight, I mean, no friggin' good." God used this to work on Ananias and his bias. Two points: God loves doing awesome things through those who know Him and He wants us to realize that He wants others, even those who seem least likely. Raise the vision for yourself and for others.

I have a lot to say, but I'm not really sure I want to say it all here...

I'm reading a book called The Three Battlegrounds, by Francis Frangipane and I highly recommend people read it. It's all about spiritual warfare and how it operates in our minds, surroundings, and the spirit realm.

So, yeah that's all...

So my coworker Ben says to me one day at 4:25 am as we're walking into work, "Morning. Did you know there are people living in the core of the earth?"
I replied, "I'll bet they have monorails."

As he walks into my trailer, "Did you ever think about how racist Rudolph is?"

Today as he came to help me with something, "We should just all become pirates, it'd be awesome until the FBI caught us."

I liked the pirate idea the best because we said we could hijack Fedex trucks. We would wait by the guard shack and then suddenly ropes with grappling hooks would be thrown from the bushes and we'd climb on. We would draw our curved blades, plunder, then make off with all the booty. When the authorities did catch us we would have a long, drawn out sword fight.