So I heard somewhere that some crazy huge percentage, I'm not sure of the actual number, of Christian kids leave the church and never come back when they get to college. Since I'm leaving for college in just a couple of months I'm gonna try my hardest not to become part of that statistic.

One of the first things I'm gonna do when I get down there is find a church. It's gonna take a lot of willpower but I'm gonna try to drag myself out of bed every Sunday and go to church without having to be told by Mom. 

I'm gonna keep reading the Bible every day and pray all the time for God to keep me focused. 

Finally I'm gonna try to do that campus ministry thing I mentioned a few posts ago. If I'm working on sharing the gospel with others I should be more focused myself.

If you've got any tips, encouragements, or whatever I'll totally appreciate it.

On a completely unrelated topic, happy Mother's Day!  I love ya Mom! I wouldn't be the incredibly amazing guy I am today if it wasn't for you :)

Sticks and Stones

I ride my bike around a lot, and I have a lot of time to think about various things when I'm miles away from town riding up and down the Panhandle's incredible straight roads. Today I got to thinking about how when I was little it was really a big deal, in school and at home and everywhere, to not call names and not say hurtful stuff to people. In high school it seems that virtually everyone has forgotten about that. Every day I hear, and say, words like faggot, retard, idiot, and other things that I'm not gonna write down.  It's like it isn't even a big deal anymore to be constantly trying to cut other people down. Almost everybody in my school is guilty of it, myself included.

Almost every day I'll either witness or be a part of a verbal battle that has more curse words than most R rated movies. And we do it right in front of teachers too. I can only think of 2 teachers who will even say anything when two students start cussing each other out right in front of them. What happened? In second grade I'd get in big trouble just for calling somebody dumb or weird. Now I can yell down the hall at somebody, proclaiming them to be a bleeping bleep bleep or something and not even get a reproach from a teacher.

And maybe it actually hurts that annoying kid's feelings when I hurl expletive laden insults at him every day. Maybe it doesn't, but still, I'm not putting a very Christ-like image if I talk like that. 

I'm certain that I've read scripture dealing with cussing and name calling and the like, but being the scatterbrained teen that I am, I can't bring any verses to mind. If I run across any I'll put it in the comments. 

So anyway that's all I've got for today, so when I head to school tomorrow I'm gonna try to do like my mom says and if I don't have anything nice to say I won't say anything at all.

I'm back!

So my blogging fervor kind of died not too long after I started this bad boy almost a year ago. I've been doing all sorts of crazy wild teenager stuff like building computers and doing mad donuts in my parent's pickup. 

Anyway I figured with graduating high school and shippin' off to college looming right up in front of me that this would be a pretty good time so start bloggin' again.  I'm headed off to Tulane University right smack in the middle of the Big Easy in a few months, so it should be interesting to see how a good Christian kid from the Oklahoma Panhandle deals with life in one of the biggest party towns in the country. It will probably harder to stay on the straight and narrow down there than it is in Boise City, USA, so if all yall would pray for me in the next few months I (and my mother, I'm sure) will appreciate it.

Anyway, to get you caught up, I'm graduating in just a few weeks, and I'm heading down to New Orleans in August. I plan on majoring in Music Performance, but that will likely change. 

Um, I guess I'll post a little bit about biblical stuff, since that's kind of what this blog was supposed to be about. A couple months ago in Sunday School my teacher mentioned that there were 31 chapters in Proverbs, so it's really easy to read a proverb every day of the 31 day months. So I just finished up with Proverbs 2, and learned some good stuff. I should seek wisdom, stay away from murderers, and watch out for the adulteress who flatters with her words. Good advice!

Well that's all I've got for you today, so I'll see you in another 8 months!

Prayer Really Does Change Things

I work waiting tables at a Pizza Hut, and for the last couple of months I was really butting heads with one of the managers. For whatever reason she was always giving me the most distasteful jobs, busing my tables for me and claiming that gave her the right to keep the tip, and making me stay at least an hour late every single night. I responded by being a little butthead, and doing everything I could to make her job harder.

One night, after listening to me rant about it for the thirtieth or fortieth time, my mother had the audacity to suggest I pray for this manager, who I'll refer to as PHM (Pizza Hut Manager) from now on. She said also to pray that I would be nicer to PHM, because the Bible says

"But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in doing so you will heap burning coals upon his head." Romans 12:20 NASB

After much deliberation I decided this wasn't such bad advice, so I asked God to literally heap burning coals upon PHM's head. He told me that probably wasn't going to happen, so I did what I knew I was supposed to and actually prayed for her, asking God to change my attitude, and to help PHM in every way he could, which I was hoping would be a promotion to a bigger Pizza Hut far away from where I worked.

After a few days of praying for PHM whenever I remembered to, things started to get better at work. I was being nicer to her, and in return she was being nicer to me. And I just found out today that the big boss of this Pizza Hut gave PHM a talkin' to about some of the things she did that grieved me so sorely. Burning coals? Not quite but I'll take it. Today she actually did some of my work for me and sent me home a little bit early. Yay prayer!

Falls Creek

I just got back from Falls Creek, a huge Christian youth camp in Oklahoma, and it was an amazing experience. In addition to having a great time hanging out with friends and getting to worship God with 6000 other teenagers I learned some things from God this week.

The first thing I figured out is that I've been going about my relationship with God all wrong. I've got several atheist friends and whenever I was around them I would sort of hide the fact that I was a Christian, because I was almost ashamed of it. I wouldn't come right out and deny my faith, but I wouldn't come right out and talk about it either. I would tell them stuff like "yeah I'm a Christian, but I'm not like the other Christians you know, I'm not into church and most other Christians are stupid," or something like that. I looked pretty cool for my non-believing friends, but I almost felt like I was apologizing to them for what I believed, and I wasn't right with God. At Falls Creek I came to realize that being a follower of Jesus is absolutely the greatest thing in the world, and not something to be ashamed of. So I made a decision to not hide my faith anymore. It's going to be hard, and I'm kind of nervous about it, but I think it's what God wants me to do.

Another thing that happened to me at Falls Creek is that I felt called to be a campus missionary. What the people at Falls Creek challenged me to do was get people praying for the students at my high school and then share my faith at least once a month. From the minute I heard about it I haven't been able to get it out of my head, so it seems like God is pointing me in that direction. I'm scared to death at the thought of sharing Christ with my classmates, but I suppose that if I can help get one person saved it will be worth it.

-Ross

Check One Two

Welcome to Log and Speck, my blog about trying to be a Christian teenager in today's world. Here I'll be ranting and raving and posting incredibly deep thoughts on Christianity and religion and whatever other stuff pops into my head at the time. Hopefully if this blog gets any kind of readership (is that a word? readership?) going it could be a witnessing tool of some variety. Anyways, I'm just kinda getting to feel for this blogging stuff, so that's all for now.

-Ross