Philly blog to come soon.

Very soon, I hope. When it's not 2 am, when the Olympics aren't on and Michael Phelps isn't around to distract me with his swimming greatness and adorable grin... So part of the reason I've waited from writing a Philly blog is because I am drained. Spiritually I am drained, concerned, not necessarily dead inside, but my quiet time is more of an obligatory drudge through 2 Corinthians than what used to be joyful time spent falling in love with God. I want a good day of relaxing, of no worries, maybe away from the house, on the beach, with my Bible and John Piper and the grubby Chesapeake Bay. Maybe some pomegranate juice, my favorite. Maybe this day won't happen and it's just wishful thinking on God's agenda. Maybe I am being lazy and just waiting for God to do His magic. Also I'm buying a new computer this week, but I'm still comparing prices and getting advice from my dad about what computer is best and yatatta yatatta. It's all very stressful.

Onto this great new blog I found called Stuff Christians Like and it's wonderful. It's pretty funny and just shy of offensive - but it's fresh and at times a stark realization of how weak, hypocritical, judgemental, etc. we are (I am). Reading some of them shows me how silly I am about certain things, but also encourages me that some things I've been recognizing this entire year in my walk are recognized by tons of other Christians - at least this guy, Jon, who writes the blog. Some of my favorites are:

# 373 - The Prayer Ninja
# 92 - Riding on the cool van in youth group
# 370 - Getting addicted to religion

My testimony of finding Christ deals with this. Here's a quote from this entry I like:

I didn't know there was such as thing as too much faith or too much Jesus or too much Bible or too much God. But that's not what the counselor said. He said I was addicted to religion, not God. And there's a big difference. I tried to push back on this new piece of information. It wasn't possible. I couldn't possibly be using religion as a way to act out, as a method of gaining an emotional high or medicating a pain I didn't want to deal with. I couldn't possibly be hiding inside the constructs of religion to escape reality.

But slowly but surely, I started to see the truth. I realized that after coming home to God in the sense of the Prodigal Son story, I had grown impatient. Things were not happening as fast as I thought they should. My definition of redemption was not unfolding in the way I would have planned it. And like author Gerald May writes, I began "trying to command the very process of healing."

# 367 - Asking for money at church
# 366 - Holy quotes at the end of emails
# 364 - Feeling unqualified for "that thing"
# 263 - Competing in the "VBS classroom decoration wars."
# 262 - Hoping TBS edits the Sex and the City movie, too
# 260 - Drawing in the bulletin
# 259 - Thinking faith is an event
# 253 - Painting God mad

I challenge you to read them all. They are wonderful and delightful because they are true. I have experienced half of them and know others who have dealt with the other half of the issues this blog is all about. Definitely visiting this more often!