Question: What are some of the most important things to a teenager?  No matter who you ask, almost every teenager would put friends on the list.  We love friends, and we love people.  People can make us feel special, adequate, loved, and listened to.  I'm a people person...I get my energy from being with other people.  Friends are fun to be around.  But, do you see a trend in everything I'm saying?  It's all about me.  And here in lies the problem.  We use friends (even if we won't admit it) to make us feel special, adequate, loved, and listened to.  We use friends for our own energy.  We use friends to give us pleasure.  It's all about me.  At least, I do these things.  So what happens when we feel like people aren't listening to us?  We feel bad, and don't want to be around them.  What happens when our friends aren't being loving?  We feel bad and don't want to be around them.  What happens when our friends aren't around when we want them to be around?  We feel bad and just want to be around them?  Why?  It's because we make people and friends all about me.  I realized this in my own life.  The whole problem I was having was that I was viewing my friends in a selfish way.  Don't get me wrong, I cared about my friends, but it was still more about me than it was about them.  Instead of viewing them in a way that's all about me and what they can give me, I should have been viewing them as people, as loved and as special to God as I.  They are not selfish tools for my own gain.  They are people, and once I start treating them the way I would want to be treated...once I start treating them like people, apart from anything that has to do with me, a real friendship can occur.  We should not go into a social event thinking "What can these people do for me."  Instead, we should be thinking, "What can I do for them."  Does that make sense?  I hope you don't think I'm in a bad mood or anything.  I'm actually in a very good mood, and I'm about to go to a get-together with a bunch of friends in a couple of hours, but it's something I wanted to touch on.  So, you can take this anyway you want to, but think about it...          

Well, the title explains it all really...and we all do it.  Especially teens.  I've realized that I worry about what others think about me quite often...and it's not good.  I was at my family farm with a group of college students that my brother Evan had brought.  So, I'm the youngest, and I don't know some of them very well.  I tried hard to impress them by looking a certain way and acting a certain way.  I worried about what they thought about me, especially because, since they didn't know me as well, I wasn't as outgoing.  I do this a lot.  I was playing soccer today and was worrying about looking good so that the Bryan soccer players would think that I was good, and maybe play it to me more.  I consequently played pretty bad until I told myself to just play hard and do my best.  I did a lot better after that, but still was thinking about how they thought about my play.  I could go on and on.  There are several traps that many of us fall into.  1.  To get someone to like us, we'll try to change the way we really are.  This is not good at all.  First, we're saying that the way God made us wasn't good enough.  Also, since this isn't who we really are, then the person doesn't actually like us they like our false self...if you try to do that to get in a relationship with someone, it is bound to fail.  2. we read too much into other people's expressions.  So many times I will come home from being with people, and get all these negative impressions that people didn't like what I did or what I said.  It's good to try to check yourself, but it's dangerous when you start to read too much into how people feel about you.  You either start having a pity party because you think that no one likes you (when actually they are fine with you and you just read them wrong) or you start to defend yourself by attacking them in you thoughts (which is dangerous if they really don't feel that way).  Don't try to read people too much.  It's not good, and things will probably be worse than you think.  I've done that before, just to find you that it was a little blown out of proportion.  3.  we can start to view ourselves by the way that others view us.  This is a killer.  Once we start seeing ourselves from the outside-in, we start to lose who we really are.  We start seeing ourselves the others see us, and this makes us change who we are and do different things.  It gives us a false sense of who we really are.  Once we start to view ourselves by the way others see us, I guarantee that our relationship with God will suffer.  God wants us to see ourselves the way He views us.  He see's what's really wrong with us (not other people) and we need to strive to look better to Him (which means changing our hearts not our outward appearance).  Am I making sense?  Once we do this, we will enhance our relationship with God (because we are looking inside to see what needs to change) and it will help us care more about other people (since we won't be worrying about ourselves, we can be more in tune with other's feelings and needs).  I hope that made sense, if it didn't, just tell me and I'll try to explain it better.   

So, there are plenty of things I could write about, but this just kind of came to me as I was walking up the hill to my house.  Almost everyday after I come home from Class in Chattanooga (which is Wed and Fri) I kind of go over what happened and I usually feel bad.  I just get this feeling like I didn't please God...there's something you need to know about me.  I am always concerned whether or not I am pleasing God...Did I please Him today?  Or, I shouldn't have done such and such, or whatever.  I strive to please Him, and feel bad when I feel I didn't.  But, as I was walking up the hill, feeling a let down after being with people for so long, I thought of something.  Am I paying too much attention to doing the right thing, that I'm missing my relationship with God?  I feel like for the most part I'm pleasing Him, but do I have much of a relationship with Him?  I know I love Him, for Jesus says, "if you love Me, you will keep My commandments."  But, I don't feel like I have a great relationship.  I could be totally wrong about this, but perhaps I worried so much with the commandments of God, that I ignore the Person of God.  Should I obey God and keep His commandments?  Sure, realizing that I will never be perfect, and it is He who conforms me into the image of Christ, not me.  But, maybe I need to be paying more attention to just being with Him and loving Him and having a deeper relationship with Him.  I don't know what a deeper relationship would entail, but I'm looking.  I could be completely wrong, and it isn't much of an issue, but I think it is an issue that needs to be dealt with. 

After I finished writing this, I sat down to the piano and started playing the hymn Lord with Glowing Heart I'd Praise Thee.  It comforted me, and here are the lines to the first verse: "Lord with glowing heart I'd praise thee for the bliss thy love bestows, for the pard'ning grace that saves me, and the peace the from it flows.  Help, O God, this weak endeavor, this dull soul to rapture raise: Thou must light the flame, or never can my love be warmed to praise." 

This post is about waiting on God.  I'm actually waiting on God right now.  I need his wisdom on how to talk to a certain friend...I don't want to rush in and say something I shouldn't...Should I be kind and lenient, or say what I actually think?  Well, I'm waiting for the answer, hopefully it will come soon.  As a Christian, I face many situations that need wisdom.  This especially hits me in the realm of witnessing.  Up until recently, I had never really witnessed to any non-Christian...maybe a couple times, but not really.  Partly because I live in a small town where almost everyone calls himself a "Christian."  Also, I really didn't want to, and it really didn't occur to me much.  Lately, I've been making it a precedent to really follow God's leading, especially in witnessing.  The problem is, once I tell God I will do whatever He tells me, I immediately get the feeling that I need to do the things that I don't want to do the most...whatever it is at that time.  With most people, I feel uncomfortable witnessing...until I actually get up and talk to the person.  Once I've started the conversation, it's fine.  But, it's awkward...and I usually don't want to do it...Anyway, so I get these feelings to go witness or something, and I'm really not sure if it is from God or not...I don't want to rush in and do something rash...and make the situation worse.  I need wisdom.  So I pray and ask God what He really wants me to do, not whatever my faulty intuition wants me to do.  What does God want me to do?  This is where I sit back and wait on Him.  There are some situations that call for quick action, but for many situations, it doens't hurt to wait.  Example:  I was lying in bed on a Saturday morning, and I think I was praying.  Anyway, I got this feeling like a really needed to go out a witness to my neighbor...like today.  I didn't want to, and I didn't think it was a good idea.  1.  We've been having many Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons come door to door in our neighborhood recently, and I don't want to be another door to door salesman for whatever religion I'm offering.  2. I bet my neighbor is already a Christian.  But, I was having this really uncomfortable experience.  I prayed about it...and prayed about it again...and thought through different things and prayed some more...and I'm still waiting on an answer.  My neighbor isn't going anywhere, and I'm sure not.  So, for now, I'm waiting to see what God tells me...and that's just where I want to be.  I love to dialog with God...like Moses did in defense of Israel.  God cares about what we have to say, and He doesn't mind hearing our opinion, even though we must realize that if He says do this, we need to do it.  But, many times, there are feelings that we think are from God but actually aren't, so we pray and dialog and wait.  God will reveal to us the truth in it's due time.     

Okay, so I'm sitting here, and I'm not sure how much details I should share with you guys, cause it's kind of embarrassing to talk about my inner sinner...but why not?  (it's not like many people read this anyway :-)  Okay, so I was at school today, and one of our lectures was on spiritual gifts and whether the miraculous gifts of Speaking in Tongues, prophecy, and healing are still around.  So, great, I enjoy that stuff.  At lunch, I go out and throw the football with some friends, and walk up to the porch, right before lunch is over to realize that a bunch of people are sitting around talking about tongues and stuff like that.  I had this sinking feeling, "Man, I wish I had known, that would have been a lot better than throwing the football around."  But as I heard the last tidbit of the conversation, I started analyzing and getting this feeling that I was the one with real biblical knowledge, and some of these guys just don't know what they're talking about.  They were in the dark about spiritual things...I was the one who really knew what the truth was.  Or something like that.  WHAT AN ARROGANT PIG...well that's what I realized a couple minutes afterward.  I realized that I sort of had that same mindset for some time now.  I realized how arrogant and prideful I was, thinking that I knew so much more about Scripture and that they really didn't know what they were talking about.  Something hit me.  God definitely showed me where I had been going off, but I didn't start beating myself up about it.  I realized the problem, confessed it to God, and moved on.  I also realized something cool.  Okay, so this sort of mindset has been going on for a while, and all the while God had not confronted me about it...He chose this moment to show me how I had been acting.  If God were like me, He either would have been ripping his hair out at my arrogance, or He would have told me right away...but He was patient, waiting until the right time.  He put up with my arrogance for some time, and then revealed it to me at the right time.  It shows how we need to be patient as well with our fellow Christian's weaknesses.  Be patient...because God is always patient with us.