OK SO if you want to skip all the fun stuff and get to the meat of this post then skip down to the next word that is in CAPS.
This past weekend was a weekend of full of stress, and yet awesomeness at the same time. Actually last week I had two papers hanging over my head all week, which is actually somewhat usual for me because I am such a big procrastinator.
Like, I'm not sure if you realize how big of a procrastinator I actually am (dangit, this next sentence may come back to bite me if a future employer read this, o well). A couple examples: Freshman year I took two classes titled "Old Testament Survey" and "New Testament Survey." For these classes we were required to write summary papers for books of the Bible, and these papers would easily amount to 11 or 12 pages. Just to give you an idea, I always completed every single one of these papers the night before they were due. I'd sit down at my computer and not move for at least 6 hours straight until the paper was completed.
That is just how I worked. I feel like I have no motivation trying to complete a paper a week or two weeks before it is due. I am just more motivated under pressure.
So now that you have a better idea of my philosophy on much of the homework in my life allow me to continue with this story.
So I had two papers that were due today (Monday, 2/23). For both of them I needed some sources from the campus library. With this in mind I headed to the library on Friday and retrieved my sources for my first paper which was only 3 pages in length. I completed this paper in about 3 hours after which I went to an awesome cafe that I had never had the privilege of experiencing before. So it was great to spend some time with them. Though I knew I had a long day ahead of me the next day so I got to bed a bit early, and actually woke up the next morning around 10:30am, which for those of you who know me is early for a Saturday morning.
The second paper that I had to do was an exegetical paper on a passage in Romans. Now this was the big kahuna. It had to be 9–10 pages and I had to use at least 8 sources, and it was due on Monday. (yeah what your thinking right now is exactly what I said to myself). Dangit!
To make a long story short, I spent a couple hours in the library scanning all of the sources I needed and emailing them to myself because I knew the library was going to be closed on Sunday. I also did this because I had made plans to go to a friend's apartment that night.
So on that note, I went to my friend, Dan Andrews' apartment and we had dinner, and played a game called "Consequence", which ended in an interesting way. Lets just say that I was on the floor having hot wax poured on my bare chest (I just wanna say "your welcome" in advance for that image that you have in your head right now). It was basically a truth or dare type game, and one of the rounds the loser had to have hot wax poured on his chest. That lucky person was me. So needless to say that was a blast.
The next day I had to work frantically to get this paper done.
WATSUP!
Ok, now lets get to the meat (the important stuff) of this post. The basic thing I had to do for this paper was exegete Romans 8:15–18 in a length of 9–10 pages. This means go through each clause, and sometimes each word of each verse and study it, and exegete the meaning of the passage, or draw the meaning out of the passage, by means of commentaries, or Greek Lexicons.
One thing that I realized as I got further into this paper is that I wished that I had started it much earlier than I did. I wish that I had more time to work on it. It has been a while since I've done that type of in-depth study in a passage of Scripture and I missed it so much. Actually, that is how I used to do my daily devotions, and then for a couple different reasons (that aren't good reasons) I stopped doing this.
One of the reasons is because it just takes alot of time to do, and not that I didn't want to spend time doing it, but many times I would do my devotions in the morning before class, and I would only have 20 or 30 minutes. With so little time I just would not get much study done. For those of you who have done exegetical studies of Scripture, you know what I am talking about. I mean I wrote 10 pages yesterday on just 4 verses alone and it took about 7 1/2 hours.
But that is still not a good reason. If I don't have enough time, then I just need to get up earlier.
I had just forgotten how much I can learn from doing studies like that. After completing the Romans paper I now understand those four verses so much better than I ever could have understood them without doing that paper.
Another thing I was reminded of were my days in high school when my youth pastor asked me and my friend, Heidi Summers, to teach a workshop for the youth group on how to study the Bible. I miss this as well. After I learned how to study the Bible in this way I was so passionate about it, I always had to tell someone what I had been learning from my studies. Where did that passion go?
These are some things I have been thinking about.
Another thing I missed from teaching that workshop was being able to take my passion for studying the Scriptures and invest it into my piers. Like this workshop was intense. Me and Heidi had almost no outside help at all. We came up with the lesson plans ourselves, and we taught it ourselves. We taught them how to cross-reference verses, how to use different versions, and even how to use a Greek-Hebrew Lexicon. I got that feeling like I was useful and investing into other people's lives, much like I've gotten that feeling here at my PCM in Chicago.
It is a great feeling to know that you are investing into someone else's life and having an impact on their life. It is something that I want to do more of in the upcoming days, weeks, months, and years. Especially as I go throughout the rest of my time here at Moody in Chicago. My thoughts on that subject are another post for another day. Also, another upcoming post is going to be about my ideas that I have everyday about using media in churches, and just in ministry in general. Great stuff.
but goodbye for now. do you have any stories about how you have invested into another person's life? If so, write a blog post about it and then leave a link to your post in a comment.
investment
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
respect
I'm writing to you from a seat on the Metra train in Chicago on my way to my PCM (Practical Christian Ministry) where I am a Jr. High youth leader in a church in Schaumburg, IL (click here to read a previous post about my PCM). I love working in this ministry every week, but the travel is just very time consuming. This is the second week in a row that I have gone really early so that I can work on the youth group's website.
So on this train ride every week I find myself spending alot of time listening to my iPod, but at the same time observing people on the train. I almost said that I enjoy observing people, but I guess I don't particularly enjoy it, I just find myself doing it alot. Although many times I do get enjoyment out of it just because people are really amusing to watch sometimes.
I just got on the train about 15 minutes ago, and I'm facing this man who looks like your typical city worker. He has his laptop bag, newspaper, 2 big cans of Miller Draft (the beverage of choice for many men taking the train on their way home from their job). I was watching as he was getting himself situated in his seat, and I usually notice things about people that are different from me. So the first thing I noticed was that 1. after he opened his can of beer he broke the tab off the can and threw it on the floor. After he did this I was a bit more intrigued to continue watching him. LOL, I know this post is sounding very stalkerish, but just bear with me. After that 2. he grabbed his newspaper and there was a sticker on the front page so he took that off and literally just put it on the train window. Following this 3. he took out a tissue, blew his nose and then to get rid of it he stuck it in between the train wall and his seat.
Now, I don't know what you would've thought about this, but anytime that I see someone just blatantly litter, vandalize or disrespect someone else's property I can't help but just shake my head. Sometimes I'm even in disbelief of how people treat things, and I mostly see it done to public property, but it urgs (not sure if thats a word) me even more when it is done to stuff that is owned by someone.
Actually, after thinking about this more, I guess what really urgs (see, I used it again in a sentence) me is when people are so blatant about it. This guy on the train just did it with a bunch of people around, and acted like it was his daily routine and that it was no big deal. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was his daily routine, because many times I see the same people on the train every week, and I'll observe them and they eat and drink the same things every week, and many times even sit with the same people. So I could easily imagine this guy taking the train at the same time everyday, sitting in the same seat, drinking the same Miller Draft beer, reading the same newspaper and putting the sticker on the window everyday.
Then again, we are creatures of habit, that doesn't make littering, or vandalizing the right thing to do, but if you do a sin once then it just becomes easier and easier to come back to that sin and not think that much about it.
It could go back to the way we were raised though. I was raised to always respect other people's property, and that included public property. I'm not getting on my high horse and saying I'm better than anyone else, but that is just how I was raised. Some people might have been raised by their parents to not have respect for people's property, and this might not have been blatant on the parent's part, but the kid sees their parent doing this, and then thinks it is okay.
This causes me to think even more about how very important it is to raise my kids the way that I believe is biblically correct. I actually think about this quite often (click here to read my previous post on parenting/raising children) and it often times scares me to think about how much influence I can have on a human life. Let me just say that I am writing this with the assumption that I am going to have kids, which I probably shouldn't assume so easily, but it is still something that I should think about. I mean, it can't hurt to think about it, right?
So this post has quickly gone from respect for others to parenting. Anyways, that is another post for another day, and I'm becoming very very long winded, so I'm going to shut up, and let you think about these words.
Do you ever observe people and just shake your head in disbelief? Do you think about parenting, whether you have kids or not? It is an interesting thing to think about. Comments please.
kids these days
So on this train ride every week I find myself spending alot of time listening to my iPod, but at the same time observing people on the train. I almost said that I enjoy observing people, but I guess I don't particularly enjoy it, I just find myself doing it alot. Although many times I do get enjoyment out of it just because people are really amusing to watch sometimes.
I just got on the train about 15 minutes ago, and I'm facing this man who looks like your typical city worker. He has his laptop bag, newspaper, 2 big cans of Miller Draft (the beverage of choice for many men taking the train on their way home from their job). I was watching as he was getting himself situated in his seat, and I usually notice things about people that are different from me. So the first thing I noticed was that 1. after he opened his can of beer he broke the tab off the can and threw it on the floor. After he did this I was a bit more intrigued to continue watching him. LOL, I know this post is sounding very stalkerish, but just bear with me. After that 2. he grabbed his newspaper and there was a sticker on the front page so he took that off and literally just put it on the train window. Following this 3. he took out a tissue, blew his nose and then to get rid of it he stuck it in between the train wall and his seat.
Now, I don't know what you would've thought about this, but anytime that I see someone just blatantly litter, vandalize or disrespect someone else's property I can't help but just shake my head. Sometimes I'm even in disbelief of how people treat things, and I mostly see it done to public property, but it urgs (not sure if thats a word) me even more when it is done to stuff that is owned by someone.
Actually, after thinking about this more, I guess what really urgs (see, I used it again in a sentence) me is when people are so blatant about it. This guy on the train just did it with a bunch of people around, and acted like it was his daily routine and that it was no big deal. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was his daily routine, because many times I see the same people on the train every week, and I'll observe them and they eat and drink the same things every week, and many times even sit with the same people. So I could easily imagine this guy taking the train at the same time everyday, sitting in the same seat, drinking the same Miller Draft beer, reading the same newspaper and putting the sticker on the window everyday.
Then again, we are creatures of habit, that doesn't make littering, or vandalizing the right thing to do, but if you do a sin once then it just becomes easier and easier to come back to that sin and not think that much about it.
It could go back to the way we were raised though. I was raised to always respect other people's property, and that included public property. I'm not getting on my high horse and saying I'm better than anyone else, but that is just how I was raised. Some people might have been raised by their parents to not have respect for people's property, and this might not have been blatant on the parent's part, but the kid sees their parent doing this, and then thinks it is okay.
This causes me to think even more about how very important it is to raise my kids the way that I believe is biblically correct. I actually think about this quite often (click here to read my previous post on parenting/raising children) and it often times scares me to think about how much influence I can have on a human life. Let me just say that I am writing this with the assumption that I am going to have kids, which I probably shouldn't assume so easily, but it is still something that I should think about. I mean, it can't hurt to think about it, right?
So this post has quickly gone from respect for others to parenting. Anyways, that is another post for another day, and I'm becoming very very long winded, so I'm going to shut up, and let you think about these words.
Do you ever observe people and just shake your head in disbelief? Do you think about parenting, whether you have kids or not? It is an interesting thing to think about. Comments please.
kids these days
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
motivation
One thing I have realized over the past couple days is that I have been very unmotivated to do any type of work whatsoever for the past week or so. Today I realized something else. One of the reasons for my unmotivation is that I have not worked out or ran at all for a little over a week.
Today it has been around 60 degrees all day here in Chicago. It is a huge change from the weather that we have had over recently. So I knew that I absolutely had to do some type of physical activity today or else I would be screwed. So I decided to go for a run outside, which is unusual for me. Usually I run inside on a treadmill because I am able to keep track of my time and distance, but today I just said "forget it" and I went running along the beach. I don't know how far I ran, but all i know is that it felt good.
After I returned from my run, I realized that my thoughts were more positive toward the work that I had to do, and I am just more motivated to do things now. It is weird how aerobic activity and working out can have that much of an effect on me mentally. I don't think this is universal for everyone, but I know it is for me. After working out I just have this strong sense of accomplishment, and I am completely refreshed.
I think the weather has alot to do with it as well. Living here in Chicago in the winter is one of the most depressing things I have ever gone through in my life, and it especially had a big effect on me this year because of all the junk I've had to deal with. So for us to have 60 degree weather here in Chicago has helped me alot in having positive thoughts and such.
So I wanna challenge you all to get out and something today, walk, run, something. It doesn't even have to be outside, but doing some type of physical activity helps, I promise.
o yeah, and I wore sandals today!
Today it has been around 60 degrees all day here in Chicago. It is a huge change from the weather that we have had over recently. So I knew that I absolutely had to do some type of physical activity today or else I would be screwed. So I decided to go for a run outside, which is unusual for me. Usually I run inside on a treadmill because I am able to keep track of my time and distance, but today I just said "forget it" and I went running along the beach. I don't know how far I ran, but all i know is that it felt good.
After I returned from my run, I realized that my thoughts were more positive toward the work that I had to do, and I am just more motivated to do things now. It is weird how aerobic activity and working out can have that much of an effect on me mentally. I don't think this is universal for everyone, but I know it is for me. After working out I just have this strong sense of accomplishment, and I am completely refreshed.
I think the weather has alot to do with it as well. Living here in Chicago in the winter is one of the most depressing things I have ever gone through in my life, and it especially had a big effect on me this year because of all the junk I've had to deal with. So for us to have 60 degree weather here in Chicago has helped me alot in having positive thoughts and such.
So I wanna challenge you all to get out and something today, walk, run, something. It doesn't even have to be outside, but doing some type of physical activity helps, I promise.
o yeah, and I wore sandals today!
Sunday, February 8, 2009
sickness
To be honest I've been avoiding writing a post for a about a week. I know, bad blogger etiquette, but there has been a couple actually kinda big posts that I've been thinking about, and that need to be written, and I've just been lazy and not writing them. LOL. And I'm still gonna be lazy and not write them right now, because I'm gonna just give a quick recap of my past week, and maybe a small description of some upcoming posts.
I got sick last Friday, like, not 2 days ago, but the Friday before that. It started out with really bad headaches and then Friday night I got a fever, and I was in bed literally for the next 2 days. I did not leave my dorm room from Friday night until Sunday evening. I was feeling good enough I thought to get out and watch the Super Bowl at a friend's apartment, so that was fun. But this past week has not been fun. I started to feel a bit better on Monday and Tuesday, and then it all came back on Wednesday. All of this is happening in the midst of Founders Week here at Moody.
I finally got in to see the doctor on Friday, and by that time it had just moved to a bad chest cough. So I go in, and I explain to the doctor what is going on, and I expected some prescription medicine, but instead I just got a stupid look, and they told me to go home and drink tea and wait it out. Not exactly what I was expecting to hear, and kinda frustrating.
Thankfully, it is now Sunday, and I'm feeling pretty good. Still a bit of a cough, but it should be gone in the next couple days.
So an upcoming post is going to address the purpose of blogging.
This past week, one of my best friends from back home changed his status to something to the effect of, "Jared wants to know why people blog about their life when people don't care." Those weren't his exact words, but thats pretty close. So I commented back, me being the social media enthusiast that I am, and tried to defend blogging. So then he commented back, and this proceeded to turn into a "comment debate." Something I was not interested in getting into, so I told him I would address this topic in an upcoming post.
So be looking forward to that. I've just been avoiding because it takes alot of thought and mulling over, something that I have not been a fan of this week. LOL. Sad I know.
Anyways, that's been my week. Also, one of my new favorite shows, "Damages." Other than some unnecessary sexual crap, it is a good show, and I've been addicted to it.
later
and don get sick
I got sick last Friday, like, not 2 days ago, but the Friday before that. It started out with really bad headaches and then Friday night I got a fever, and I was in bed literally for the next 2 days. I did not leave my dorm room from Friday night until Sunday evening. I was feeling good enough I thought to get out and watch the Super Bowl at a friend's apartment, so that was fun. But this past week has not been fun. I started to feel a bit better on Monday and Tuesday, and then it all came back on Wednesday. All of this is happening in the midst of Founders Week here at Moody.
I finally got in to see the doctor on Friday, and by that time it had just moved to a bad chest cough. So I go in, and I explain to the doctor what is going on, and I expected some prescription medicine, but instead I just got a stupid look, and they told me to go home and drink tea and wait it out. Not exactly what I was expecting to hear, and kinda frustrating.
Thankfully, it is now Sunday, and I'm feeling pretty good. Still a bit of a cough, but it should be gone in the next couple days.
So an upcoming post is going to address the purpose of blogging.
This past week, one of my best friends from back home changed his status to something to the effect of, "Jared wants to know why people blog about their life when people don't care." Those weren't his exact words, but thats pretty close. So I commented back, me being the social media enthusiast that I am, and tried to defend blogging. So then he commented back, and this proceeded to turn into a "comment debate." Something I was not interested in getting into, so I told him I would address this topic in an upcoming post.
So be looking forward to that. I've just been avoiding because it takes alot of thought and mulling over, something that I have not been a fan of this week. LOL. Sad I know.
Anyways, that's been my week. Also, one of my new favorite shows, "Damages." Other than some unnecessary sexual crap, it is a good show, and I've been addicted to it.
later
and don get sick
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