Sometimes the Human race is disappointing

Yesterday was a very frustrating day. It started out OK because Jen and I went fishing. She was fishing for Crappie and I was fishing for Bass. She caught a whole lot more than I did (around 10, we kept 7) and I caught one good size bass which was kind of exciting. Well, I have as of late decided to put my fish into a bucket of water because the last few times I have gone fishing, a snake has latched on to one of my fish. Anyway, so I put my bass in the bucket along with three of Jen's crappie. I walked off and continued fishing until a heard a dreadful noise. Thump...flap, flap, flap...splash! That's right, you guessed it, my big bass had escaped from the bucket and back into the water. That was pretty frustrating... but it was OK because Jen had caught some fish.

Jen and I headed home around 8 because it was getting too hot to do anymore fishing. So I was sitting there eating my breakfast when the doorbell rang. I get up and get the door expecting it to be someone from my church. It was not who I expected. It's the Sheriff. My heart suddenly leaps into my throat thinking of all the times I have accidentally, and only slightly purposefully broken the law.

Luckily, he was not there because I had broken the law, at least not in Oklahoma. He was there to serve me a court order and inform me that I was being sued.

Three and a half years ago, on December 30, 2002, I was heading back to OC and got caught in a blizzard in Limon, CO. A semi jack-knifed about a mile in front of me and stopped traffic. I was going about 30 miles per hour when I saw the break lights directly ahead of me. I began to pull my vehicle onto the shoulder trying to avoid hitting somebody. But a woman had parked her car there. Needless to say, I slammed on the breaks, but to no avail. I rear ended her and it was of course my fault. Luckily, the police officer did not give me a ticket because there were so many accidents that day.

For those of you who do not know (I did not know until yesterday), you cannot sue somebody for injuries in an automobile accident once three years have passed. This woman filed her suit on December 30, 2005, exactly three years after the accident. I was livid. I jumped around and yelled for a while until I realized that was not getting me anywhere. To make a long story short, I called my insurance company from the time of the accident and their lawyers are going to take care of it.

But this whole ordeal makes me disappointed in the human race. It is obvious that this woman was not seriously hurt in the accident. For one thing, they took me to Limon to call my parents. We were all checked over EMT's on an ambulance. There were no injuries to any of them. Plus, if they were actually injured seriously, they would have made a claim many months earlier than the last day to get anything out of it. Why are people like this? They use the extra long arm of our legal system to twist arms of people they will never have to be in the presence of.

The only thing that gives me peace in all of this is that God knows the truth. He knows whether they are actually injured in such a way that they do need monitary help or whether they are just misusing our legal system and trying to get something for nothing. God is the judge and I put it into his hands.

May 22nd on the mission trip

In the Warehouse

We arrived in Pascagoula last night. I was not sure what to expect on our way down. I thought we would be staying with church members. Where we were staying was quite a shock! The preacher called it a warehouse (I found out later that the reason it was called a warehouse is because a bunch of donations were stored in the rest of the building). It is a three room bulding with bunk beds and very dirty, probably from all the workers staying there.

Last night we also met one of the carpentars that we would be working with. I can't remember his name (it's James) but I do remember his story. He came down here 2 months ago, got attached to the place and is now living in the church building. He was hit by a truck while on the job and he is currently working with his lawyers to get workmans comp for all the time that he was not able to work and his current condition. He wants to stay and work for about three more years. He was also recently baptized and he asked the preacher why he had to put on a body bag (the baptismal clothes). Did I mention he was from Michigan? He has that nazily Michigan tone.

Also, when we arrived there was another group staying in the "warehouse" from Wichita Falls, Texas. They are leaving this morning and we will then have the one shower and two toilets to ourselves.

Pascagoula MS

Mission trips seem to have a way of changing your outlook on life a little. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was planning on taking my youth group down to Pascagoula, MS which was hit by Hurricane Katrina. When I looked around and saw the devestation that these people had lived with it made me realize that I have it relatively easy. I also look at the Central Church of Christ which is bringing relief to all the people down there. Their volunteers work tirelessly. In my opinion the guy who is in the leadership position, David, has been endowed with special strength from God. He told me that last month he decided to start taking one day off a month. What, are you kidding me? I am worried about my 1 and a half days off every week and after 8 months of 12 to 14 hour days, he finally decided to take a day off?

I look at the huge effort that is made by all these groups coming into MS and New Orleans to bring relief to the suffering. Are people who don't know Christ not in a similar plight? They are facing eternal death! This is a disaster of catastrophic proportions and we sit in our living room and watch TV so that we can watch our favorite show, or (in my case) try to go fishing once a week, or golf, etc. Lord, forgive us for our selfish lifestyles in the U.S.

I started a journal the first night and kept it until the second night. AFter that, I was too pooped out to pick up a pen when I got back to where we were staying. I will put some of those entries in future posts.

Some stuff

I am about to take 6 of my teenagers on a mission trip to Pascagoula, MS. I know what you are thinking, isn't there a song about that place? If you are asking that question, yes, there is a song set in Pascagoula. It's the Mississippi squirrel song by Ray Stephens. A guy in my church asked me if we could bring home a whole boxfull of those squirrels (if you are not familiar with the song, the squirrel causes a revival in the small church).
Next week we will be traveling about 2000 miles. On our way back from Pascagoula, we will stop by Galveston, TX and visit the sights at Moody Gardens. Then travel back to Cordell. It will be a long trip and there will be a lot of time on the road, but I know God will bless it. If you are reading this before and during May 21-27, please pray for our trip. I'm sure I will get tons of pictures while we are there, so look for them in future posts.
I hope that you will also pray for my sister as she is not doing very well physically. She has gone to many doctors, but none of them have been able to help with her condition (they don't really know what it is).
I hope that you will pray for my parents also because they are moving back to Colorado to work at Mountain States Children's home. It is a challenging, and sometimes non-rewarding work, but they will be blessed for what they do.

...

Well, I haven't posted on here for a while. Tons is going on. I am working on a mission trip, and Cordell Christian Camp. It is going to be an awesome summer. I love the summers in youth ministry but at the same time I somewhat dread them. They are so busy and take up so much time that there is just not hardly any personal time.

Something I have been thinking about a lot lately is the fact that it is so hard to get teenagers to be committed to Christ. There is such a line to walk in this area. I don't want to pressure them to become Christians, thereby causing them to prematurely committ their lives to Christ, but at the same time I want them to feel the burden that Christ has put on them to committ to him. I guess that all I can do is ask God to touch their hearts and ask him to give me wisdom as I lead these teenagers.

Beautiful

God has been blessing our church immensely. On Monday we had a Valentine's banquet. We had a ton of people show up and they all had a great time. The policy was that the men would do everything. They cooked, served, and cleaned up. It was quite a surprise to our ladies that we were actually able to function in the kitchen. (Hopefully they won't start expecting anything:) We also had entertainment from one of our newer members, Alvin, who has an interesting talent. He is a magician. He wowed everybody with his deft hands and quick witt! During his show he grew a following of men. You can see Ronnie in the back smiling. It was a wonderful night.
There have been amazing things going on with the youth group also. I took seven kids to Altus last weekend for a youth rally. We all had such a great time. The fellowship was wonderful, and I truly enjoyed just hanging out with my teens without having any responsibility.
We are also doing the Relay for Life in May. Last night we got started on all of our fundraising ideas. The teens are so excited about it all. We delegated responsibilities last night and are starting the raising of money to support cancer victims. It is turning into such an amazing bonding experience for everyone and it is really getting everybody involved, especially the girls.
The ski trip is shaping up well, and it looks like we are going to have a great group in March. WE might even have as many as 40 people coming from a church of 100. To me that is amazing.

Sometimes I just wish I could go away

Man, I feel so much better. I just finished a book review that has been hanging over my head all day long. I didn't do as good as I could have on it. There is just way to much to do and never enough time to do it. LIke last week, I had to preach two sermons (my preacher was gone), plus teach a class, plus study for a test, plus have two different Bible studies with kids. Plus read for my second class, plus working on a paper topic, plus work on my mission trip that fell through, etc. I could go on and on. I am just going to be so happy when I am done with graduate school and when some volunteers here in Cordell have been cultivated. Maybe I'll be a little bit less busy. I love my job, but there are some days when I just want to get out for a while and breathe.

So much to do, so little time

Picture of several of my kids on a Christmas outing to see lights and a movie (Chronicles of Narnia)

I have not posted on here in quite some time. I want to try to start posting on here every Monday, but we'll see how that goes. So much has gone on in the last couple months. I went to my in-laws house for Christmas, then I went to my parents house also. I went to NCYM (National Conference on Youth Ministries) in Nashville, TN in the first week of January. On top of all that I had youth activities and homework.

Last night was the Super Bowl. I really didn't have a team that I was going for. I wanted the Steelers to win because they beat my Broncos. And if they are going to get beat, I want them to get beat by the champions. But I also kind of wanted the Seahawks to win also because they were a team nobody expected to be in the Super Bowl. It was a decent game, nothing real exciting, but by no means a blowout.

Well, it's time to get a little work done in preparation for the men's meeting and homework for tomorrow.

My day

You know, I posted that entry this morning and then I had a totally mixed up and crazy day that ranged from talking to a man about his marriage, to doing palates and cooking stuffed mushrooms. So I guess you are probably thinking, How in the world can you do that in one day?

I woke up this morning (at 5:40) with all these great intentions to study and get ready for my test tomorrow in Introduction to New Testament and to work on a paper. So I woke up, came over to the church building and started cooking eggs (we have men's breakfast every Monday morning). We all ate and all the old guys made fun of me of course (at least they think they make fun of me). They say these things to me and all laugh while I am in the dark. I really have no clue what joke they are making. It makes absolutely no sense to me. And I know that if I were to make a remark back, nobody would laugh because they would have no clue what I was saying! Oh the joy of fellowshipping with people three times my age. Anyway, they have a great time picking on me and I don't mind. I am usually too tired to understand what they are saying even if they do make sense. Even though they are three times my age, the are surprisingly chipper at 6:30 a.m.

So we clean up after breakfast and I come to my office and start working on homework and about that time a man from my church walks into my office and sits down and wants to talk. So I give him my attention and come to find out he is going through a major family crisis and his wife is threatening to divorce him. So I talk with him for THREE hours and I recommend a book that might help them and make sure that they are continuing there counseling and then I look at the clock and realize it's lunch time. So I go home and Jen reminds me that I had promised to cook stuffed mushrooms for lunch (something she doesn't do, No I'm not talking about the cooking part, just the stuffed mushrooms).

So I cooked, we ate, and I looked at the clock and realized that I didn't have time to go work out like I planned. Well, Jen suggests that I try Palates (I don't think I am spelling that right) with her (she has never tried it and is borrowing the DVD from mom actually). Now for all you guys who think that Palates is increadibly girly and somewhat pansy-like...it is, I will never do that again (though my abbs are quite sore). The funnest thing about the video was making snide remarks about the comments the chicks made to each other and looking at the toned buuuuu....iceps of the instructor lady (I'm sure I'll get smacked for that one).

So now, here I am, sitting at my computer and writing this instead of studying. In the words of Napolean Dynamite..."IDIOT!"

Josh Out

Tons of Stuff

I wanted to take a little bit of time to apologize to all of you who may be looking for new posts on my blog. I have been super busy with school and ministry and have not had enough time to post regularly. I still have three weeks of school left and until I have taken my finals I don't predict anymore posts.

By the way, the Broncos are doing awesome! I am looking for their Turkey Day clash with the Cowboys.

Poor Broncos

My boys have lost...Eli Manning had to pull some kind of magic and march the Giants up the field in a last minute drive to score with only 5 seconds left on the clock.

I have really been on the up lately. We had a great hayride on Saturday night. We had tons of people there and we had a lot of fun. Here is a picture of all of us before we left. I really don't know how we fit this many people on the trailor. If you know who my parents are, they were here this weekend for a visit and you can see that they rode the hay along with everybody else. We had a wonderful visit and got to play some games, and eat together. My sister and her husband were here also. We had a great time.

God has been working on my heart lately. He has also been speaking to me through His Word and others. He has shown me that it is very good to be humble but being humble does not mean that you always assume others to be right in their criticism. I have always been one to take the criticism of others very seriously. As soon as I am criticized I would often try to change immediately regardless of the source so that the person would have nothing to criticize. I want everybody to like me. However, I have found that people's criticism is often wrong even though it may come from somebody twice my age. I hate to admit that sometimes people that I look up to may be wrong, but it happens. I was taught to respect my elders by my parents. However, while the person is older than me, that does not mean they are more mature than me. There are people who I can trust their criticism to be sound and evidence for a needed change in my life (my parents are a good example for this). There are other people whose criticism holds less weight. They are less in touch with God and their view is somewhat skewed from what God wants it to be. The hard part is judging which type of person is criticizing me.

A Silly Song

The following song is a poem who's beginning came from one of my friends in highschool (Anton, for any of you who might know him). After the beginning, me and several other guys at camp this summer turned it into a silly song that our cabin sang for the talent show this summer.

Back in the days of old
When men were bold
and toilets were not yet invented. -Anton

You found a tree,
And paid the fee,
And it was very well vented

Leaves were a penny,
Pine cones weren't any,
But make sure and wash in the stream.

The girls went south,
The boys went north,
And the animals, they went were they wanted.

Once there was a horse named Newman,
All he wanted was to be human,
He found the tree,
And paid the fee,
And put that tree, out of commission
Oh he put that tree out of commission.

The girls went south,
The boys went north,
And the animals, they went were they wanted.

-Cabin B3 at Quartz Mountain Christian Camp session 10

The Clouds are Clearing

Lately I have been having such a hard time. Though I didn't take the time to sit down and think about why I thought this was a hard time. All I could think about is that I am really upset right now. Yesterday, I finally figured out what was going on (at least I hope so). Whether it was Satan, or just my human nature attacking me, I don't know. The problem was/is things that are completely out of my control. I work hard on my job and I work hard on my school work, but even when I was working hard things seemed to not go according to plan. I have been known to not be a very hard worker in the past and I paid for it. I guess that the problem here was that I was working hard, but I seemed to be paying the price for not working hard. Kids were leaving the youth group, I was not getting all of my homework done, and it seemed very rare indeed that I could formulate a plan in my mind and stick to it. Therefore, everytime things failed to go according to plan, I thought of myself as a failure.

All this came to spilling out yesterday to my preacher, my wife and my God. Once it had all spilled out though, I realized that all of these things are out of my control. If I am doing my best, it is near impossible to improve on that. Sure, other people might be able to do better than me, but I cannot compare myself to them. I must realize my limitations and let God work where I cannot. I am trying to take to heart what Christ said in the Gospel of Matthew, "Don't worry about tomorrow." I am just going to do my best and lot God handle the rest.

I am so thankful to God that he revealed this to me. I just hope that he continues to reveal little jewels of wisdom to me so that I can continue to grow.

A breakthrough

Lately I have been really down on myself for several reasons. Mostly because I just feel so overwhelmed with grad school and working as a youth minister. I love my job and I love these kids here in Cordell. There have just been so many things running through my head when it comes to youth ministry. My original idea was to do a lot of fun things to attract kids and then try to teach them the Bible. But I slowly found out over the past few months that the kids that are attracted by fun stuff are kids that are here for the wrong reason. The most common name for these kids is church-hoppers. They go wherever the most fun is. I admit, I was getting several kids here, but they were not being affected by the Word of God. I tried to set up Bible studies with some of them, but to no avail. They would just come to class once and be a problem and not come back except for the fun stuff.

The problem with fun stuff (like lock-ins, 5th quarters, and anything else fun) they take a lot of time to plan. That time cuts into my teaching preparation. So I was showing the visual Bible on DVD and doing very little preparation because I had events to plan. The kids were bored with class but loved the fun stuff because I prepared diligently for it.

I finally realized that this is kind of backward. I should diligently prepare for teaching God's word and put events second on my planning agenda. This may seem like common sense, but it was not readily apparent to me in the heat of the moment.

So the reason I was overwhelmed is because all of these church-hopping kids brought tons of baggage with them and I felt like I was not getting anywhere with them here. So I started preparing diligently for class and devotionals. I have been doing this for only the past few weeks and I see a difference. Not as many kids are here but the kids that are here want to learn and worship God (for the most part, they still have their moments). The church-hoppers are not here to disrupt the class, and there are actually a couple of them who have continued to come and my hope is that they will be changed by God's Word.

There's always something

Well, I thought I would have it easy this week. I only had about 210 pages of reading to do and a test to study for. Well, yesterday, I came down with a cold and amidst popping vitamins C and B and drinking liquid echinecea (not sure if that's how you spell it), I was blowing my nose and had a splitting headache and could not read all that well. I feel better this morning thanks to the vitamins and echinecea but that does not make me able to study any faster. Oh well...once again, I'll just do my best.

From one point to another

I seem to be jumping from here to there. I was all set and ready to drop my class at one point and then I thought well maybe I can stick it out. Then I started working on stuff again for class and realized that I was so far behind that I could in no way catch up. Well, I called my advisor to drop my class and by being sent to several different people, I realized that if I drop my class, I would end up having to pay over $400 dollars. First there are no refunds if you drop a class 3 weeks after the beginning of classes. Second, they would drop my scholarship because I would not be enrolled in 6 hours (my scholarship is $50 per credit hour), so that is $300, and $150 of it would be money for a class that I am not even taking. Last, I would have felt obligated to pay the $120 that my church paid for the class that I was going to drop. All that equals, $420. Wow! Who would have known that I would end up paying that much just to drop a class!

The long and short of it is, I am going to stick it out. I am just going to work as hard as I can to make it through this semester, and then, I am going to take only one class a semester from now on.

The news on my test that I had to take on Tuesday is that it was not too bad. I didn't do great, but I don't think I failed. I'll just have to do better on future tests. I also finished my paper on time and I think it actually was a pretty good paper.

Well, time to start on my school work!

Great Intentions

I have great intentions but sometimes they don't work out. There are so many things that I have planned on and still plan on doing. I planned on learning guitar and becoming good enough to bring it to a camp out and play camp songs and get people to sing along by the fire. I plan on staying in shape so that whenever I do get a chance to climb a mountain or go snowboarding I can enjoy it. I planned on finishing undergraduate school. I planned/plan on being a minister of the Gospel of Christ. Most of those things I have done and still plan on doing. But one thing lately that has not gone as planned is my graduate school experience.
You saw my frustration last week in my previous post. Well, I worked so hard on trying to get all of that stuff done. I was in my office close to 9 hours a day, (starting at 7 and ending around 6 with a two hour break for lunch and some exercise) studying for my test, reading, putting youth classes together and working on an essay. I have spent nearly 15 hours working on graduate work this week and my work is barely half-way done. I thought maybe I could just do it if I made a plan and stuck to it. But it just didn't work. Great intentions. Maybe I am just a slow reader, or maybe I don't understand as quickly as others. Maybe I need more sleep than others. Or maybe I am not cut out for graduate work. I don't know. All I do know is that I am not going to quit. I may have to drop one of my two classes this semester and go at a slower pace, but I will not quit. I have quit in the past but I no longer want that to be part of my personality.

Misery

There are very few times in my life that I have been miserable. The first time was my first few days at OC. My parents dropped me off and I had no friends and my roommate was a jerk.

Another time was when I had food poisoning. I could not eat normal meals for four days and I lost about 10 lbs. I could not stand up without feeling slightly dizzy and nauseated.

The third time was when I twisted my ankle so badly that I could not play sports for 2 months. (I had to take up bike riding instead! Yuck!)

Another time was when I could not poop for 5 days! Yikes. I felt like I was going to explode!

I have officially run into another time like those. This week, I have about 200 pages to read. This is not just any reading either. This is reading in huge books in which it takes me an hour to read between 10 and 15 pages. I also have a test to study that covers over 600 pages of reading (of which I have only read about half). Plus, I have another 100 pages of reading for my other class and a 2000-2200 word essay to write. My life is in the pit of despair! (not really) But man, I am going to have no time at all this week.

The only consolation I have is that next week at this time, it will all be over. Whether it results in failure of test and a late paper is yet to be seen. You probably won't be hearing from me in the next week...

Josh out

Why are things important to us?

This is a question that has haunted my mind for some time. Why do some guys prefer blond, burnett, or in my case strawberry blond? Why do some people play golf and others go fishing? Why do some people spend so much time and money working out, putting on make-up, getting the right clothes, etc., while others are perfectly content with just looking normal? Why do some people love sports so much that they watch ESPN sportscenter non-stop, and when they are not watching that, they are watching a game of some sort while others really do not care for sports or sportscenter for that matter. Why do some people keep their houses clean while others live in a pig pen? Why do some people love God, but others hate him?

This is a very tough question that I have raised, and I don't even know if I can answer it, but I am going to try and maybe with the input of you people out there, we can come to a conclusion. There is a huge amount of factors that go into the importance of things in our lives. The first factor is our culture. Culture seems to have a certain set of norms that it tries to place on everybody. It seems to tell us quite often that the tanned and toned, skinny body in which you can see every rippling muscle is better than the the regular every day body. Most of us do not have a regular membership to a tanning spa, nor can we spend 2 hours a day working out in a gym.

The second factor is our background and how we are taught. There are certain things that brought us joy all through our younger years. Maybe it was sitting down and watching sports with your dad, then watching sports brings back those times just beneath your subconscious. Or maybe for you ladies it was primping with your mom. Maybe you would sit down with her sometimes and she would put make-up on you and you would "fix" her hair. Maybe in your past you had a memorable experience, whether good or bad, with an adult after which you vowed to either pass the tradition on or never to act that way to another human being as long as you live. Maybe your parents sat down with you every night and read the Bible to you and prayed with you. They showed you what true Christianity could do for a family. Or maybe you grew up in a home in which religion had no part and your parents taught you that you don't take no crap from anybody, period. All these experiences in our backgrounds contribute to what we see as important.

The third factor is payoffs. You may wonder what I mean by 'payoffs.' I will try to explain. Anything that caused good things to happen to you, or at least things that you viewed as good, is obviously something worth repeating. And anything you did or tried to do that caused pain or hurt is not something you want to repeat. In other words, if you went out on the football field during your freshmen year of high school and you got pummeled, you may decide to never lace up your cleats again. On the other hand, if you got out there and you ended up being a cotributing factor on the team, you might just play all four years of high school.

I am sure that there are many other factors that contribute to the amount of importance that we assign different things in our lives. However, I believe that these are probably the main ones (please feel free to comment on this idea). But while looking at these factors, I come to one conclusion. There are no absolutes in any of them. Our culture, our background, and what brings us a payoff could all be wrong (I feel that no further comment needs to be made considering this statement, however, if I need to expound let me know). I am reminded of the first graduate class that I took at Oklahoma Christian University. While in under grad, I could usually wait until the last minute to start working on assignments because I was a hard worker, a fast reader, and I could accomplish rather large things in small amounts of time. I entered graduate school and I found this not to be true. I tried to read seven books in 3 weeks and it just didn't work! All this brings us to one question: How do we find out what the true importance is of all things if these three factors that all of us experience are imperfect? I believe that this question inevitably leads us to a higher power. In my case, I believe that through a combination of prayer, reading the word of God, and fellowshipping with the People of God I will always be learning more about the most important things in this life.

I hope that through these three things, God's Word, His people, and prayer, that we can constantly evaluate and examine the things that we assign importance to. Make sure that you are not a slave of your culture, your background, or your payoffs, but instead be a servant to Christ. Paul writes this about himself and other great preachers of the faith, " So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God."
-1 Corinthians 4:1

Random thoughts...

My wife and I just returned from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico on Saturday night (actually 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning). We had a wonderful time. After returning I felt well-rested and re-energized. I was ready to get back to work and I was actually excited. I haven't been excited about work for a couple of months now. I was sick of the teenagers and their problems and complaints all of the time. I was emotionally drained. I didn't really realize how tired I actually was until I was driving home on Saturday night. I felt aware and awake. I was ready for anything and I had lots of energy. I felt like I could drive all night. It was at that point that I realized I hadn't felt that energy in myself for some time. Vacations are a needed part of a minister's life for recuperation and restoration. I hadn't had regular times with God for about 2 months because I was just so exhausted all of the time. I can't believe how worn out I was. I have decided from this point on that I am going to be careful about how much strength I dole out. I used to believe that I had an endless supply but I now realize that I do not. But on the other side of that issue, I know that I need to trust in God when I don't have the strength. Sometimes I don't have a choice.

There has been an issue on my heart lately that I have been wanting to express. The issue is sin. How do we in our individualistic American culture deal with sin? The answer is obvious. We deal with it individually! We sin and then we think, I need to deal with this. So we pray, read God's word and ask for forgiveness. This is incredibly Biblical, yet, it is also incredibly unbiblical. God's Word clearly states we are to use His Word, and His Spirit to overcome sin. But that is not all we are to use! We are also to use each other! We must confess our sins to each other. Only then is God's plan of overcoming sin fulfilled. We cannot overcome sin unless we confess to each other and God, pray for forgiveness and use his word as our spiritual sword. This plan is so simple, yet the application of the plan is near impossible for prideful, individualized Americans! If churches would follow this Biblical model the church would be revolutionized. We would be more unified, less hypocritical, and more empathetic of sinners. There would be a common theme of a church full of sinners saved by God's grace and mercy! I think this vision is something that more people would want to be part of and participate in.

Well, there, I got it off of my chest. Time to do homework! Yeah buddy.