inner_ponderings counterentity there are times i wish i were someone else. someone more ept, more capable. when i was a child, i constantly questioned my parents on their decision to come to america. to have thrown away what seemed to be so much to gain so very little. i could not understand what was so unique about this land that seemed all too foreign. growing up, i sometime wished i went to different schools. had chosen to take different classes. had developed a different persona than the one i currently have. around me, i saw people my age going out on weekends, enjoying what was supposedly the "prime of our lives." reflecting back, however, i realized that if i were to take away all the things i had so longed to escape from, everything currently in my life would be fake. a tainted lie in a life lived in hypocrisy. i would not have the wonderful memories i have. nor the friends to share and laugh the same jokes with. and above all, i probably would not have had the same God to depend on. indeed, happiness, well JOY, comes from within the self. from the joy that others lend to you. from the joy of talking to the one you love to simply spending time with the One above. i think i've matured greatly as a christian these past couple months. from the ignorant, apathetic individual to the repenting, inquistive soul. yet all the while, i still question my faith in Him. i question my love and my willingness to express this love for him. i don't want to be the half-hearted christian that taints god's name. i don't want to be the devil's advocate. i want to live a life in Him. but what if i'm not ready for this life? 030713 ... oldephebe I think that every day we commend our lives to him, thats every day we breath in a little more of his goodness. Every day we go to the spring of living water to be fed to be wed to be bled of the old ways. I think that every day we spend time in His Word to study His character and learn those deep implicit teachings, we build up a treasure within ourselves. We build up a store house of sayings wait more than sayings we build up this treasure inside of us. As we learn to live life our life out of the heart of God. May I be presumptuous to suggest a non-dogmatic down to earth website? Go to Lovinggrace.org - They have real player there and radio archives going back six months - some of the archives are titled some aren't. May I suggest the program dated 5/2/03? The host Reverand Monbleau is a radical type of preacher meaning he's not fake or money grabbing or head tripping on power games and guilt games. He just teaches out of his personal experience. Out of God's loving gentle heart. Conventional or codified christianity has a tendancy to have people drwoning in the detritus of the details, raining rules upon peoples heads and yet the world never touches the heart of God and not one indignant, judgemetal word touches the heart of the hearer. Humankind is thirsty for something real, desperate for something that connects them. And about the whole crucible of faith thing. We all have our moments of doubt if we didn't we wouldn't be human, God doesn't condemn that, His aching heart is only pleading for us to look up and let ourselves be drawn back to Him. If you read Pual, that prolific scribe and prosyletizer of the early church you'll find even Pual with all his power and insight had moments of doubt moments of weakness wherein the spirit was caught between the confusions of the flesh. - and every time what brought Paul back to Christ and what brings us back is becoming like a small child in our spirits to weaned on Him (Christ). You'll be okay as long as you live your life in bite sized peices. You've got a big God that will work things out. Our weakness our infirmity only brings us back before Calvary. Okay so I went on kind of long and if you read some of my postings on this site you'll see that some of them are drenced in despair but its always Gods gentleness that calls me back. We're human we're finite and flawed but we have an everlasting hope not based upon us but in Him. .. later 030713 what's it to you? who go blather from