Peace

God grant me peace.

I don't want to want, I just want to be in your will.  I know if your will is my will then I may have peace.  I dont want to want anymore.  I'd just like some peace.

I am terrified when I say "peace" what I really mean is happiness.  For some reason it just seems so selfish for me to ask you for happiness.  That seems too bias; seems to lack objectivity.  I hope that is not what I mean.  

I hope I can have a level of happiness in my life knowing that I am doing your will and I am at peace with that.  Maybe they are complimentary, or maybe I'm just phrasing things in a clever way to make myself feel better.  

I do want to be happy, but if that's not really a good thing to ask for I would settle for some peace.  If peace is not a good thing to ask for... then I guess I'll wait till I'm in a position to ask for something better.  Maybe objectivity in my own introspection.  Who knows, maybe I have too much of that as it is.

Help.  Give me whatever you know I need.  We both know I can't decide what that is.

Peace, God Bless

The Problem of Prayer

I was talking to a friend of mine from back home the other day about how I have a very heady and over-sensible faith.

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I didn't grow up in the church so before I became a Christian when I was around 15 I wasn't bringing any preconceived notions or perceptions of who God was with me. I didn't grow up being spoon fed anything about God or Christianity; God was rarely, if ever, a topic of discussion in my house.

With that being the case, hopefully you can sympathize with the fact that everything about the faith has always had to make sense to me, in one way or another. That doesn't mean that I have to understand why things happen and stuff like that. It just means that whenever I started to take the faith seriously I had a thought process that went something like this: "If this is going to be my religion and this is going to be my faith, then it is going to mean something to me. It doesn't make any sense to even bother with this whole deal unless this is something that I'm going to really let impact me." At that point, it didn't make any sense to me to start believing and investing who I was as a person in something that didn't teach things that resonated with me as true. Luckily, the gospel has turned out to be the most relevant entity I have ever been exposed to.

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The main thing my friend and I were talking about was how I have trouble with prayer sometimes (maybe a little more than sometimes).

I have a really hard time sometimes because I get to the point where I feel like I "know" this is true or that is true. I "know" God is with me and He loves me and He isn't going to ever give me anything I can't make it through. If that is the case, then it doesn't even matter what this whole sucky thing I am dealing with right now is, because it will pan out and ill be okay, regardless of the result.

You can imagine that if I honestly look at things that way on a consistent basis, sometimes prayer isn't what it should be for me. If I "know" all of that then I always seem to slip into this mindset where I think it can seem so pointless to pray and look for encouragement and such. I wind up telling myself that I just need to suck it up and keep going and I'll be okay. At the end of the day, God will be with me and things will be fine regardless of how bad things hurt. It doesn't even matter the outcome of the situation because I "know" He will take care of me. I just "know."

That kind of approach to prayer can really hurt the relationship with me and God; it almost renders prayer useless, at least when I'm looking for God to give me comfort and just be there for me like He loves me.

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I "know" God loves me, and that might even be another issue in the situation. It is almost like I have so much confidence in God that I feel that every time I get upset or get down on myself that it is foolish to take it to God because I already know He loves me and asking Him "why?" isn't going to get me anywhere. Maybe I'll never know why, and I'm okay with that. Maybe I won't know why for a long long time, and I'm okay with that too. Maybe the answer to why is simply that we are in a fallen world and God's will is not always done, but even then I "know" that He will work through the worst situations I ever experience.

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The obvious response in these situations, it looks like, is just to praise God even when I'm hurt and upset and feel like what's happening doesn't make sense. The sad fact is that I am not that strong. I am too bitter and proud to praise God during my struggles.

As hypocritical as ever, I can "know" God will lead me through and take care of me but simultaneously refuse to praise Him until He literally does it.

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There is just something about that that doesn't seem right to me. It seems like I'm not doing things the right way somewhere along the path. Maybe this just makes me normal, maybe this is an issue many Christians struggle with and work through. Maybe my conviction just gets the better of me when I feel like my prayer life isn't what it should be. I say that because sometimes it really doesn't feel like it should; it lacks the genuineness I want between me and my Father.

Maybe this really is normal, but good God it sure does hurt.

Heaven forbid I pray about it... right?

Just An Update

Today is my birthday. It doesn't feel very special. That seems sad.  I'm 20. Teen years are gone.

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I want to start writing more. I want to write stories and plays again. I miss them.

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I want to act more in the future. I miss it. I don't miss the process sometimes, but I miss performing. I miss some of the people.

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Things aren't fantastic right now. Things are really hard. They suck pretty bad some days.

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Finals are coming up. I'm not really worried about them.

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School is almost over. It is one of the most bittersweet situations I may have ever experienced it.  I think it will be good and so hard at the same time. That's life.

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Summer is almost here. Summer should be good. Once I really get into the swing of things I think it is going to be great. It will be tough in the beginning.

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God is God.  Things don't make sense.  That is life.  God is God and life is life.  I wish I had the eyes to really see the blessings in my life whenever all I can seem to focus on are the things that hurt.  I know He is here.  I know He is here.  Sometimes I just don't see it.

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Thanks for being in my life.  If you read my blog, chances are you matter a lot to me because I've asked you to read.  Blog reading is not as popular a pastime at Malone as a blogger might hope.  If you're reading this then you matter to me, most likely.  Thanks for being there.

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God Bless

Top 5 Fears

Does admitting your fears to someone make you vulnerable?  Does it mean you are just really good friends with them?  Maybe it's both.  I mean, I have always thought that the closer you are with a person the more vulnerable you become within that relationship.

In any case, I've decided to blog my top 5 fears.  Maybe this means that I'm trying to become closer to you, my faithful blog readers.  Maybe I'm trying to take that "next step" in the relationship.  Stop me if I'm going too fast; I wouldn't want to make anyone uncomfortable.

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Number 5 - Big things.  I am talking really really big things.  Skyscrapers don't scare me; for some reason I trust them.  But I do live near a nuclear power plant back home in PA.  There are these gigantic smokestacks that are connected to the plant.  Whenever I drive by these awkward shaped smoke stacks I immediately become uncomfortable.  It's kinda like I'm riding a roller coaster only instead of going down a big hill I think the stack is going to fall on me and kill me.  It's a slightly less gratifying experience.

Number 4- Bugs.  I hate bugs.  Not the individual fly that is buzzing around the room.  But I hate the thought of bugs on me or surrounding me.  I knew watching those specials on bees on National Geographic when I was a kid was going to come back to get me... I hate gross, nasty-looking bugs.

Number 3 - The ocean.  This is kinda connected to number 5, since the main reason I am TERRIFIED of the ocean is because it is so big.  You cannot trust the ocean.  I repeat, you CANNOT trust it.  You can't even see all the stuff that is in it!  There are animals and stuff in the ocean that are so big.  Whales scare the crap out of me.  They are just so big that they could come out of the water and smash me and wouldn't even notice or care.  Stupid whales.  If I was on an awesome cruise ship with a ton of other people I might feel better, but thats no guarantee either.  Ever hear of the Titanic?  Leo DiCaprio is more than willing to educate you if you haven't.

Number 2 - Family dying.  This might be a surprise to some of you considering I am not as close to my immediate family as so many people here at Malone are.  Even still, the thought of either of my parents or my sister dying is a scary scary thought for me.  When I would have wicked bad anxiety attacks as a kid, the big fear that always took me over was that either my sister or one of my parents would die.  If I ever have a family of my own, I'm sure this fear will shift so that they are part of the focus as well.  I'm not trying to say that pretty much everyone doesn't share this fear, but I guess because for such a long time it was something that crossed my mind so frequently that it is kinda imprinted on my mind.

Number 1 - God will call me to do something that I really don't want to do and it will cost me the people that mean the most to me.  This is possibly the most selfish fear that I think anyone could possibly have. Nice job Nick...

I always think about this time in high school that I stood up for the right thing and it made a lot of people who I was pretty close to upset.  Really upset.  I guess that I have this fear that God's call for my life is not necessarily going to connected to happiness.  Do I believe God wants us to be happy? Absolutely.  Do I believe that God gives some people a calling and puts them in places to be his hands and feet in ways that are not particularly filled with joy?  Absolutely.  God's will is ultimately what is best, I know this.  I just don't want to move forward before I'm ready; I don't want to leave the people who mean so much to me behind.  But if God tells me that I'm ready, then I'm ready.  I know I'll be okay in any situation God puts me in, it is just really easy to get so wrapped up in the people and environment we are always around that we can't imagine anything else being as stable or filled with blessings as this.  That kind of thinking is not very sound; I mean, who knows how amazing and unpredictable my future is.  

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But I guess that is what makes a fear a fear; the whole part that it is not necessarily rational.

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Fears are a funny funny thing.  The more and more I talk about them, the less and less threatening they seem.  Even if they don't make sense, they are a part of who I am for the time being.

"Hi, I'm Nick."

"Hi Nick." (In unison)

"I'm a 19 year old college kid afraid of big smokestacks, bugs, the ocean, my parents dying, and God's call for me."

(Applause)