Fellow Readers,
If this is your first time stumbling onto my little blog thingy here, then I welcome you. If this is not your first time, then welcome back. As those of you who read my last post, you will know that it has been over a year since I last banged out one of these entries. You may be thinking to yourselves (or to anyone else with you, I don not know who is around you presently, nor have the jurisdiction to disallow you to think aloud with them upon your pondering), "Why has it been so long? Why is he posting now? Why hasn't he kept up with this blog more often? Why does he think I have so many questions?" Well friends (and those of you I have never met), the answer to those questions is simple: I am not who I was back then. What? Yes, I am still Andrew, and I still have the same wonderful writing style (and the same arrogance), but something has changed: Back then, one could have met me and felt there was something different about me. One might have thought there was something there they wanted, something more in life. That something, actually someone, was Jesus. No, I have not stopped believing in Him, nor has He left me. But something has changed. If I am entirely honest with you all, as well as I myself, I find I am not pursuing Him as I should be. Well, pretty much not pursuing Him in general. Wow, that sounds crazy, but I am forced to agree with it. It is embarassing actually. For those of you who know me personally, know that I am a Christian and, in general, want to live a life according to His word. However, my life does not reflect that. I am faking out my life to resemble what living my life in accordance with Him would look like. I go to a campus ministry every week; I pray when I wake up, before I eat, before I go to bed, and whenever for whatever in between; I do not curse or cuss; I do not go party and get drunk or have sex or any of the sort; I even have been co-leading a Bible study. Some of you may think, "Gee Andrew, that sounds good to me. Maybe you are just being hard on yourself. We all go through down times in our faith, it will be okay." Well, let me digress a little bit here.
The campus ministry:
I attend Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) here at good ole Tennessee Tech every Wednesday night. I love this ministry and the impact it has had in my college career. I have met so many truly amazing people because of RUF. I can go on and on about what RUF has done for me and my experiences in it. Nevertheless, it seems like this semester I have been fronting myself with this facade of a "good" Christian. Honestly, I go there out of routine now more so than for the teaching. I go there to hang out with people before and after. I go there so people know I believe. But, for some reason I do not pay attention to the message. It is like I am out to eat, but only eat the free chips or rolls and then hit up the dessert at the end, but don't have any entree.
The praying:
It is true that I pray all of those times I mentioned previously, but often times I find them to be empty banter. What do I mean? Well, at night before I go to bed, I often find myself in this routine of a prayer that I do just because I feel like I should. It is usually a half-hearted checklist of points I need to hit in the prayer. I even just wonder off in my thoughts for minutes at a time, completely tabling my prayers for careless thought about trivial things. This all may sound extreme to be hard on myself
about this, but it's just another example of how I continually put myself first.
The extra-curriculars:
Like I said a little higher up on the page, I do not do those things that could lead to trouble. Even so, I may not physically be undressing women, but I do plenty of that with my eye-OFTEN. It is rare for a pretty girl to walk by and me not give her the "once-over." I also gander at pornography (there, I said it. I contemplated putting that in here for a while, but it is "Honesty Hour," and if I am to humble myself, I cannot leave out things just because I am afraid of what people might think.) off-and-on. What I want in life, above almost everything else, is to find my clichéd "soul mate." Yet, I cannot respect her, or women in general, to stop gazing on them inappropriately. I cannot respect them enough for that. I am sorry women, you deserve way more than that. You all are the most beautiful things God put on this earth and we men are lucky to have you here.
The Bible study:
When the semester began, our campus minister asked a few of us to lead Bible study small groups this semester. I immediately accepted and was ecstatic, because I had not been reading my Bible and thought it would force me to read it. I mean, how can you lead a Bible study and not read at least the passages you will be covering, right? Well, too often I find myself not reading until the day of, or just not reading at all. At the study, I would just sit like those who weren't leading it and leave it all to my co-leader. Nothing to harp on there.
So, the reason I have not kept up with this blog is because if I got on here to give some sort of message, I would be a hypocrite because I would not be walking the perverbial walk that coincides with that talk. My hopes, I suppose, are through this, if anyone is feeling these same sort of things can feel free to talk to me. I can obviously relate. Also, by putting this out there on the interweb, I can start making changes in my life. They always say admitting the problem is the first step. I just admitted those problems to the whole world, so maybe that will encourage me. I hope I did not offend anyone with this post or come off as trying to point a spotlight on me, or as any sort of formal invitation to a pitty party hosted by yours truly. By lighting the darkness in my heart can only reveal the true sin within, while also illuminating how much grace has truly atoned. Thank you all so much
for reading.
Signing off.
