I feelÂ… Different.
Interesting way to start a post isnÂ’t it? Well, let me talk about my last 36 hours and what all has resulted from them. I will start by saying: God is great. I donÂ’t think I say this often enough. I mean, how can we? We donÂ’t deserve what he gave us. We donÂ’t deserve much of anything. So shouldnÂ’t we be offering him praises 24 hours a day? I wish that were so, but here on earth, we just have to make sure everything we do praises and honors him. Ok, so that is the short version of what happened this weekend. LetÂ’s do the long version now.
I came home Friday afternoon after work and started packing. I suppose I should mention my school ordered their laptops, this doesnÂ’t seem like really big news now, but it kind of was on Friday before I left. It is now all in perspective. So back to packingÂ… I packed up everything that was on the list except a towel. I believe Douglas Adams once said you should always have a towel. Then again, I am not sure that guy had it all together in the end eitherÂ…
I arrived at church and waited for whatever was to come. I had no clue what a student conference was supposed to be like. I had no expectations. I was completely unprepared for what it was, and could not even imagine what ways Jesus would work in our lives.
So we all headed down to the conference. I met another U of M PSEO student that I have known since she was in kindergarten at Middleton, but had never put together that she went to the U of M. So that was pretty cool. We got to the building that surprisingly was the same building that Newsboys was in just a month earlier. We found our seats, started to praise the lord, and just were getting warmed up for the day ahead of us.
The topic of the conference was the invisible reality around us. So I know what most of you are thinking right about now. Your saying things like, invisible reality huh? Eh? I donÂ’t see it? How do you know itÂ’s there? You probably think Angels donÂ’t really exist. Your probably donÂ’t even believe Hell exists. I donÂ’t know, sometimes I wonder about the readership of this site. I am wondering what kind of percentages I would get if I asked the same questions that Mark asked us at the conference. Perhaps, I will do that with the site sometime in the future. But back to the topicÂ…
He shared with us how we need to hold everything we do against GodÂ’s word *the bible*. We need to understand that Hell, a place of everlasting torment exists. He shared with us the reality of angels and demons and how they serve in relationship with God. One of those weird but cool God plans that occurred here as well was that just 4 days ago we did a small group thing on Angels. So what do you know, I have like hundreds of verses on them, and on demons. So if you would like to learn more about them I give you three options:
You can visit http://bible.christiansunite.com/Naves_Topical_Bible/ntb0300.shtml and see what all the scripture has to offer on the topic of Angels and Spirits
You can email me and ask me about your questions and I will do my best to answer them or guide you to someone who can.
If you know me in person, you can talk to me. Talking about religion isnÂ’t something most people are comfortable doing, and I must say, it isnÂ’t something I am used to doing. I think though, that it would be good for me to start doing more of. Lets see if I can hold myself, or my friends can, hold me to it.
He also shared with us the glory that heaven will be. One city alone will be huge 1400x1400x1400 miles. It will be spectacularly beautiful. ThatÂ’s where those in the book of the lamb will be allowed to enter. Truly amazing. Yet, way to many will be lost to hell. And for what? So they can practice satanic principles on earth? The world teaches us that we should do what makes us happy. It teaches that he who dies with all the goodies wins. But that isnÂ’t how it works. Instead, we should be giving our lives over to God. We should live according to his will, and accept his son as our perfect redeeming sacrifice.
WhoaÂ… lot of stuff right there.
Ok, so I am going to back away from talking about what actually was talked about for a few moments and jump to what happened in-between these sessions.
Friday night was spent at the LudwigÂ’s. Most of the guys went and stayed at their own homes. This, was a mistake on their parts in my mindÂ… The three of us, Bryan, Alex, and me, stayed up and watched Sports Center till 1:00am. We talked about hockey, football, pizza, bands, and just plain life in general. Overall, we were just getting ready to crash before we had to wake up in the morning.
So the plan was to sleep till 6:30 then enjoy a wonderfully home cooked meal. I ended up changing this plan to waking up at 6:00 to answer my ringing cell-phone. Apparently, Amber, Nikki, and friends decided to have a little fun. I guess I caught them off guard when I actually answered the phone, because they ended up hanging up on me right away. It was cool either way to know that they were having fun and enjoying the ability to remind us that we needed to wake up.
Breakfast was great. Derek and Vale joined us and we spent the morning devouring Egg Bake, Bubble Wrap?, and Orange Juice. Vale would tell you that we also had cantaloupe. The rest of us would tell you we had pineapple. We even had one of those great breakfast morning conversations. Instead of cereal this time, the topic was how our Egg Bake was the Holy Trinity. LetÂ’s see if I can sum this up for everyone and actually make it sound coherent.
The Egg – This represented God. God is the main ingredient and is generally the person who gets named.
The Sausage – This represented Jesus because well…. Sausage just rocks.
The Cheese – was the Holy Spirit. Why? Because it holds everything together.
The Pan – The Trinity… why? Because everything is in it
The other minor ingredients – the minor prophets…
Dawn the CookÂ… wait a secondÂ… no one created GodÂ… hmmÂ… we have a problem with our metaphor. Guess weÂ’ll talk about Packers Vs. The Vikings and other football related issues.
So can you tell we are really bright people in the morning? At least it wasnÂ’t cereal this timeÂ… Hey that reminds me of the song of the day:
When the toast is burned
And all the milk has turned
And Captain Crunch is waving farewell
When the big one finds you
May this song remind you
That they donÂ’t serve breakfast in hell!
A shout out now goes to Maria, Jake, and Angela. I hope I have AngelaÂ’s name rightÂ… If I donÂ’t, I apologize and will gladly correct it.
Ok, back to the rest of the conference. The last session of the event was probably the most impactful. It started with a concert where I just sat and prayed. I prayed that God would hear me. I prayed that I could overcome some problems in my life right now. I prayed that others could over come their problems. And somewhere in that time, my eyes were opened to something that I think my head knew but my heart didnÂ’t want to believe. Later that night, most of my prayers were answered in some way, some are in progress, othersÂ… are longer term things. So now begins the changes, but they are in the hands of God, so we have no worries.