Selfish prayers

For some reason I have been in blog writing mode which is pretty cool. I really like when concepts and ideas flow easily in my direction. I tend to use these purposes for my songwriting but I really enjoy expressing my thoughts on this page for all to see. Something I have been thinking about today is this idea of how we pray. I know that prayer is definitely something I would like to make habitual. I seem to find myself praying at very random times whether it be in my car or right before bed. I have a tendency of praying about things that can be very self-centered. It might be anything from praying about a future career or family to making a good grade on a test. I think many of us pray for things that God can do for us rather than becoming dependent upon Him and desiring His will. We tend to come to God when we have our wants and needs but we don't make ourselves available to how He wants to use us. I tend to think it is so sad when we pray to win the lottery and the rest of the world is praying for clean drinking water and food. Please don't interpret this entry as a venue for finger pointing. I am just as guilty about this as the next guy/girl. This is something that we have to change or else we are going to continue living in our selfish ways. It saddens me when pastors and religious leaders speak of the message of prosperity. They say "give money and you will reap a financial harvest." I would ask them "where in the Bible did Jesus say give me money and you will prosper?". It boggles me how we think that we have it bad when we are living like royalty compared to the rest of the world. We become blinded by our status and yearn for more worldly riches. We have to let God change our hearts and give us a brand new mindset. We cannot keep running after our own desires. It is hard to do but Jesus asks us to deny ourselves. It is going to take some self-examination which can be very difficult but it is the only way we will see change in the world. We will be fulfilled with living water where we will be quenched with everlasting life.

Being reactors

I had an epiphany tonight as I was attempting to fall asleep. For whatever reason, I tend to think deeply about certain subjects late at night. Most of my creativity awakens when I am trying to catch some shut-eye. Something I have been mulling over in my mind is this idea of God and how He makes us stronger. We all have this tendency of being these needy children who constantly run to God when things do not go according to plan. If we viewed God as more of a parent figure than this Santa Clause-like deity in the sky, we would save ourselves a lot of disappointment. God, who is like a father, wants the best for us but we have to play by the rules. When you were living at home as a teenager, your parents(if they were responsible) would give you rules to live by under their roof. These rules weren't constructed to make your life "unfair" but were simply used to keep you out of trouble. A curfew for example would keep you from getting in trouble with irresponsible activities(drinking, sex, drugs, etc). Your parents wanted to protect you and keep you safe. God is similar in that He wants the best for you. One of my big issues in my spiritual life is when I only go to God with things that I don't like in my life. I ask God "please give me patience with this person or thing in my life". I found that I tend to ask God to give me this or give me that when I should seek Him to attain these various God-like qualities. If you want strength, seek Him for strength. If you want joy, seek Him for joy. God doesn't give handouts. You never get an appreciation for something when you are handed it. For example, my parents let me know at an early age that I had responsibilities. When I got a car, I was the one paying for the insurance and making sure that I took care of it. My car wasn't anything special. It was the only thing I was able to get with the money I had. I did appreciate having it because I could get from point A to point B. I had to work to put gas in it. I had to work to fix any issues that came along the way. It helped me to understand how life worked and prepared me to face other responsibilities and grow. The past month in my spiritual journey has also taught me that it is truly about having a Christ-like mindset. God gives us the strength to bring us out of the pits in our lives. God dealt with me about some issues that have been brewing inside of me for close to fifteen years. I always thought I was weak and couldn't break those ties in my life but I learned it wasn't anything in my strength. My mindset has changed and now I know what I can accomplish with God and the strength He gives me when I seek Him. I'm not writing this blog to sound ultra-spiritual but this is something that has had a profound impact of my life. I hope all of you can learn to be reactors rather than waiting for God to react to a situation in your life.

What do women want?

Hi everyone! I must apologize for my lack of blog entries. I have been busy with work, songwriting, and other various activities. The reason I am writing tonight is due to the fact that I must get something off of my chest. I am on here to figure out what it is that women are truly looking for in a guy. I don't want to seem like a desperate guy because i'm not but I don't really understand why it is difficult to find a quality girl. I would like to think that I possess qualities that a girl would like to find in a guy. I am smart, consider myself to be an attractive person, caring, and creative. Maybe I am looking at myself in too positive of a light and that girls aren't looking for that. Maybe I am "not the type" or "too safe". I always seem to possess the qualities of being a good friend rather than a romantic interest. What is it that women really want? I don't know if women are looking for that perfect guy who is in the romantic movies who knows exactly the right words to say with the perfect muscles and smile or the nice, normal guy. Something else I have noticed is so many girls who go for complete jerks but have the excuse of "I really care about them". Why on earth would you care about someone who could give a crap about you? It doesn't make sense. It seems so backwards. Those jerks know that they can play their mind games and the girls are just dumb enough to stick around. I hear about these girls who do all the things that the guy should do. Anything from taking care of them financially to bending over backwards to make them happy. These guys are simply just losers and somehow these girls see something in them that I don't. It's all a big mystery to me

Insight on the food service industry

I have decided to write on a topic that brings me much frustration from time to time. As many of you might know, I work in the food service industry. I have my complaints about my job but I have great friends/co-workers and a decent company to work for. What really irritates me is the fact that one single disgruntled customer out of ten gracious customers can have such a negative effect on your mood. Tonight, for example, we have a tip jar and a place on the customer receipt where people can leave a tip as a courtesy. A man asked me "Do you guys work off of tips or are you all minimum wage?". Once I responded with "minimum wage", he proceeds to give me a gesture that suggested we not get tipped. My philosophy is that if you want to be generous and give a little extra for your appreciation then that is awesome but it isn't necessary to leave a tip. What bothers me the most is that some people look at you like you don't deserve anymore than what they pay you for their meal. Those people don't take into account that we not only make the food you eat but we keep our bathrooms clean and dining room relatively spotless for a desireable eating environment. We have to deal with customers who don't realize that the trash can is two feet away will leave trash everywhere. They also sit trash on top of the trash can rather than on the inside of the trash bag. It bothers me when some customers can only think about themselves. An example of this would be when we had a baseball tournament last week with about ten tickets of food and a customer is complaining about the televisions in the pizza place being on the wrong ESPN channel. We don't have time to change the channel when you want. We would have to explain to ten other customers that we can't work on their food because some guy wants us to figure what channel a particular baseball tournament is on. Impatience is yet another pet peeve. It is sad if you can't realize that a food worker is making food at one hundred miles an hour and you are still pissed off that your food isn't out yet. Some customers think that we can magically place their food order into a time machine and have it appear before their eyes. If you make a pizza or sandwich at home, it is going to take approximately the same amount of time. You are merely paying for the convenience to not make the food yourself. I can say that I am grateful for the fact that I have a newfound appreciation for anyone in the food industry. I can be merciful when there is a mistake on my food order or someone forgot a particular salad dressing. People make mistakes but I guess it gets lost in translation with some people. My last irritation I would like to mention is when certain customers complain about how expensive the food is. They will look at me like I can change the price on a food item. Many times I would love to say "Well, if you don't want to pay full price for our food, there are many other cheap food options within a five mile radius of our store". Some people expect you to respond to their every desire because they are a customer. I am all about customer service and advocate it in all industries but there is a point where people need to get off their high horse and come back to reality. One last tip is that I ask people to be sure that your order is exactly how you like it. If it says it on the menu then it will most likely be on your order. We are sorry that we are not mind readers and failed to put no onions and no mayo on your sandwich ::insert heavy sarcasm:: . I think that will be enough venting for the time being. I hope you enjoy :)

A really great sermon

I had the privilage of hearing a spectacular sermon at Liberty last night. The talk was essentially about how we can be better contributors in our church community. One of the biggest problems in growing churches is the fact that so many people take but few are there to give. This might mean that fewer people are contributing financially to help the church grow or the fact that fewer are being utilized to help physically. It seems like much of the time we will attend church and sit in our chairs and grow complacent. We allow our walk with God to become a habitual activity where we become comfortable in our spiritual mediocrity. The sermon made me take a hard look into my own life. I had to take a look at whether or not I was really living up to my optimal potential. It seems like we make up excuses in our head so that we can put our own desires ahead of the desires of God. We need to take personal inventory and ask ourselves what it is we are living for. Are we living to further the kingdom of God with our actions and words or are we religious people who want to point fingers and judge without love and compassion for each other. It's funny how we can isolate and divide ourselves from each other when we were all crafted from the same clay. We are all in this thing together and we need to come together and seek out what God has for our lives.

Our responibilities

For the past week, I have found myself surrounded by the news of the oil spill that hit very close to where I live. In the beginning, I was almost numb to the news because of the fact that I hear on a weekly basis of terrible situations. We always hear about horrible floods, murders, earthquakes, and other disasters all the time so it makes it easy to turn on auto-pilot and not think about the severity of the issue at hand. The reality is that this oil spill is very real. The oil spill is going to effect the environment, industry, and the way people have enjoyed Pensacola beach for so many years. It is sad when these companies drill away and have no consideration for the consequences that could occur. Money and power become priority and the CEOs and presidents of these companies could care less about anything except for themselves. Religious leaders have been responsive to this tragedy in encouraging prayer which is important but we need to get real about the situation. Prayer can be very powerful and God can move in it but we also need to look outside the box and realize that we need to physically labor to try and make a difference. In the Bible, there is a story about a homeless person asking for food but the person responds with something along the lines of "I don't have any food for ya but I can pray for you". I feel like many preachers will say "This oil spill is terrible but this is just a sign of the times. Jesus is coming back soon!". It seems irresponsible for Christians to say that they want to make a difference but then they separate themselves from situations where God can use them. I don't want anyone to think that I am being judgmental because the truth is that I am preaching to myself. I know I could be more helpful with my finances and helping to clean up the beaches and do other things to bring God's kingdom down to earth. There are a lot of things that God has to work on in my own life. I am not even close to being the model Christian but I try to let God work on my heart and help me live a life that best represents Christ. I find that many of the things I hate about religion are the things that I don't like about my own ways. I am trying to make a valient effort to change and be used by God. I have realized that it takes work to make progress. We must show outwardly what is on the inside. If we say we should do something but don't do it, we will not accomplish what we need to in order to help others.

Tradition

So I am wide awake right now and it is close to three in the morning. Lately, I have had this stirring inside of me to write and sort out my thoughts on various topics. A topic that has recently popped into my head is the idea of tradition. Tradition is something that can be a good or bad thing in our lives. Traditions can be good when we spend time with our family during certain times of the year for the holidays. We can enjoy being with one another as we celebrate different rituals that make us come together as a family. Tradition can be good even in the church with communion as we remember what Jesus did by symbolically taking the bread and wine to remember His body being broken and the blood that redeemed our souls. The part that tends to be bad about tradition is how we can become content and comfortable with where we are in our walk with Christ. We go through the motions and we don't work forward. We become the lukewarm cup of water that God would rather spit out of His mouth than savor and enjoy. It's so easy to fall into the snares and traps of complacency. We can use tradition to get off course and focus on the insignificant details. It's important that we keep focused on Christ. I think if Jesus came back to the world today, He would have some different ideas. I think Jesus would be more concerned with the condition of a person's heart rather than the people who are religious and point fingers at others. The Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God but we seem to overlook that. We can be very religious people who are so arrogant in thinking that we have "arrived". We feel like we have the license to pass judgement on anyone. If you read in the New Testament, Jesus detested these people. The Pharisees would use their religious acts and rituals in public to give the perception of being holy. I think the only way we will see change is by allowing God to take our traditions and examine our hearts to rid us of our arrogance and pride. He is the only one who can bring change to our lives and help us to live a genuine life without sin.