I really don't have a whole lot of interest in xanga anymore, but  i wanted ya'll to know that...

Elizabeth "Liz" Van Arsdale and I Justin Sargent are engaged!!!!!!!!!!

God Bless!!

well,  i guess first things first.

i have to apologize to everyone that i have met at the honor academy.  i am terrible at keeping in tough.   its like if ur not in my sight, then i can't think about you.  so many things clutter my mind!  my heart is being taken over.  where is my love for God?  where is that conviction feeling i had?  where is the passion? dang it!  i knew it!  how can you stop this from happening?  hello inconsistency! AHH.  i feel like my world of J Sarge, that i have been holding up.   i've let go.  and everyone suffers.  where are my priorities?  all i've thought about lately is my job, where it can take me and who is going with me.  i seem to go to church just to play an instrument and make a song sound good.  like a peace of wood that is rotted from the inside out...  you can make the outside seem pleasant, but the inside is not there.  a caving in affect.  wow i can hear all the i told you so's  and my voice is the loudest.  not condemned, not convicted,  not anything.  just here.  thats all im doing..  go to work come home, chill,  go to work, come home, chill.   kinds like something that you would set and forget..  in a trance as Ron would probably put it.  zombie.  i could have nothing to do and find something instead of reading the Word.,  i've got to do something.  i got to take a stand.  my flesh is settling for contenment and complacency.  well look at where my flesh has taken me.  emptiness.  when flesh wins,  that is all there is..  when this "tent" wins.  that it...  there is nothing inside the tent but air.  my soul is starving.  i have got to feed it.   i don't want to,  but i need to.  everytime i think that i got something i am disappointed.  its like...  ig et a revelation and base everything i am around that revelation...  is that wrong?  cuz there is limits to where that revelation will take me.  there is unbalance in every aspect. ......forget it..  im going  im gonna read

so,  looking at my lfie it isn't all that bad.  it is pretty good actually.  so why am i not content?  i want more than mediocre!  i had bigger expectations for what i am going through right now..  it is so boring.  like i am not doing anything for the kingdom  where are all the things that took up my time?  being out of the ha sure is a life shock.  i think that right now...  that whale is chasing me and i am getting tired and frustrated.  it is now settling in that i won't   "arrive"  in my christianity.  that stinx.  i really want to be there.  right now i am trying to be motivated to work towards something i can't accomplish.  it just doesn't make sense to go after something u can't achieve.  maybe that is the Love that Surpasses understanding that i have been talking about all year.  yea i need a major dose of that.   wow i need to LOVE. (i know i know matt)  it seems like i have tried all (a lotof ) these other things..  wisdom, faith, worship..so on and so forth.  God has told me time and time again..  Hey...   love!   yea  i hear ya God!  its so hard.. can't i just skip the working part and just skip to being a loving person?  its amazing..  you can do so many great things of God.  and if it does not take root in Love.  then it is void.  wow what a struggle..  anyways..  some praise report...  my mom fell and bruised her back..  after a couple days of pain and anguish i asked if we could pray together about it..  we did...  she was in tears at the relief that she recieved.  wow He is good.  my dad and i seem to be getting closer?  i still have some forgiving to do.  not in my heart as much as in my actions.  its weird..  i have this routine of unforgiveness towards my dad.  and even after i forgive him..  my routine continues.  so..  in essence...  my fruit needs to change!  ok ok..  enough venting.  im gonna go spend time with the Jesus i seem to know, but the more i find out the more i realize i don't know Him all that much.

To all:  yea it is frustrating some times.  but those are the best parts, i encourage you! go through the wilderness!  there is a promised land waiting!

I really don't want to be that story of the "flame that burned out:"  or the person who went back home and fell.  i know that i will fall in areas, but i want to be that one that no can talk about with disappointment and sympathy.  i don't really want to be talked about by name either.  i want to be the like the wind that causes so much erosion over time, but leaves no trace of it ever being there.  I want to leave a huge mark on this world for Christ, but have no one knew what it was, just to know that:   it was.  i think that is what i am called to be....  Forgotten.  it may seem like a rough calling.  but  it is the most rewarding.  how could i slip away into the midst of what God is doing in and through me, so that i am not remembered.  but Christ is?  I need to kill my selfish pleasures of ... various things... relationships, laziness, being impatient, being stubborn, the very small things  the cracks where integrity needs to fill.

The more i search for a career, the more that i am convinced that i am an alien in this world.  i was thinking of where i want to be in 10 years.   i want to be in heaven!  not that i am depressed or suicidal, i just want to be with God.  i want to see my friends who have gone home already and ask them what it has been like with Jesus.

hmm,  i'm also getting really sick of my flesh!  it holds me back so much!  if i could just kill my flesh once and for all.  nothing would stop me.  i could live my day looking forward to spending the best part of it with the Lord, not with friends.  what the chapel speaker said yesterday made me think a lot about who i am as a christian.  it made me think..  if there were no other people around. why would i be a Christian.  the answers may be obvious, but maybe i don't live to serve the lord as much as i serve people.  yes my life deals with the Lord, but is HE MINE?  i want other people to find what i have found but why? is it because i love Jesus, or because i love people?  its like if i tried chicken only once in my life, loved the taste, and then offered it to everyone else without ever taking another bite myself.

anyways...  i really need to take ownership of my God, to take ownership of the love He has for me.

how do i know that i love him?  i guess it would be in my serving Him that i find fulfillment of my question. but even then my motives could be misdirected.

moving forward.                                                                                            i basically do not like praying,  but i want to like it.  i even thought about forcing myself to go to IHOP to develop a heart for prayer.  anyways   i starte reading that book "intercessory prayer"  its kinda hard to keep renewing my passion to read but it is really great when i do.  the other night i was talking with my mom about God and prayer and she seemed lacking in faith, so i asked her  "what do you want to pray for?"  it was kinda scary...my thoughts were...what if we pray and nothing happens?  could my weak hearted prayer eventually cause my mom not to believe? anyways, i persisted.  she said that we could pray for my brother and him getting called for a job.  the thing is that he has had jobs b4 where he works on sunday and can't make it to church during the week.  but during my time at the HA he has turned down jobs offered for Sundays which is awesome because he loves his family soo much. so...  we prayed.  i asked for a lot of specifics  and afterward i asked my mom what she thought God wanted to do for my bro and what he wanted out of him.  we hung up and the next day my mom called back and said that God had answered are prayers!!!  she said that my brother had been called back, his job was close by,  and his schedule didn't involve sundays!  tears came as i heard the excitement and reassured faith in my mother!  she also told me that she told my brother that we were praying for him.  God is absolutely amazing. He knows what brings us to tears in awe and what makes us excited to shout.  and still i am not faithful in keeping our dates scheduled.  i put him off?  i have a lot of searching to do!  wells  i gtg