Well, I'm back. My old LiveJournal wasn't cutting it, and I'm usually jealous of whatever Marcus writes on his blog, so I figured I needed a new place to get my thoughts out. A new place for general ramblings, subliminal messages, and the occasional words of substance. And, to my maybe one, two if I'm lucky, readers, I (promise) to keep this updated somewhat often...we'll see how that goes.

Now, onto life. Life is generally good. I'm not big on living at home since I've only got one good friend within 10 miles, and my parents still think I'm in middle school sometimes, but I'm getting by. I should be looking for a job to apply my newly-graduated self, but I really don't even want to look let alone actually work. Be it fear of growing up/moving on, failing at a first work attempt, or sheer laziness, I just am not that excited about working. It'll come some day...hopefully. On other fronts, emotions/thoughts/general inner turmoils are running high again. Just stuff...about stuff (trust me, it's supposed to be vague). I might (in my "clever" subliminal way) deal with that in a later post... The Disneyland vacation is fast approaching, as is Sea World/Lake Party weekend. It just goes to show you that good things are usually on the horizon. However, it's all that stuff in front that make the horizon fade away fast. To use a metaphor, the dilemmas in life are like a giant barge full of trash floating slowly by, blocking the b-e-a-utiful rays of a setting sun. In reality, the barge is usually a part of my mind that continually tries to bring me down and constantly has me at war with my emotions. It can be an attack on my confidence, not allowing me to take a chance for once in my life. It can be a swipe at reason, in an attempt to convince me otherwise of the better things in my life. Or it can be persuasion, swaying me from the way I feel about certain people and things in my life now.

Which brings me to something I caught while flipping through My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers. It was a devotional on confidence: not in oneself, but in God alone. It opened with, "When we are afraid, the least we can do is pray to God." Then, later, it went on to say:

There are times when there is no storm or crisis in our lives, and we do all that is humanly possible. But it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely. If we have been learning to worship God and to place our trust in Him, the crisis will reveal that we can go to the point of breaking, yet without breaking our confidence in Him.

I know I have struggled with alot of things and dealt with varied crises. And, everytime I try to figure things out on my own, I fall flat on my face. When I tried to deal with stress on my own, I only got more stressed. When I tried to go after the girl without first consulting God, I didn't get what I wanted, which is usually the theme in every instance. The abscence of God almost always ends up in the disappointment of want. But if we have confidence in God and everything that He has planned, we have nothing to want. That's not to say we won't want the newest cellphone that is embedded in your pinky and thumb fingers so you can just talk to you hand, or the new iPod preloaded with every song, ever. That's not even to say we still won't want things like a good job or a significant other. God will bring you what you need and you won't want anything else. He will pull you through all those things and, if you have had confidence in Him, you will see how amazing those things are. We will remember how God pulled us through those stressed times. We will see how well God has blessed us financially. And we might even have an amazing, Godly love with someone and praise Him for the people He has brought into our lives.

The point, for me, is that I have to have confidence in God in order to have any worthwhile confidence in myself. I have to ask God to be with and guide me through everything, from looking for a job to, let's say, taking a chance on my emotions because I do still want that amazing job and that certain girl. But if I don't believe that God is going to be there for me no matter what, the wants in my life might as well be sand in a desert: dead and going nowhere. So what is the result in total confidence in God? Once again, Chambers says:

It will be expressed in our lives as a peaceful resting in God, which means a total oneness with Him. And this oneness will make us not only blameless in His sight, but also a profound joy to Him.

I don't know about you, but that sounds like a good thing. And, although I cannot say that I am altogether, at this moment, blameless in His sight or fully strong in my faith, I am getting there once again.
This isn't really what I wanted to say, but I think it's a good start.