The Journey

The car that I have been traveling on has been taking me down such a crazy road these last 3 years that I don't even know which way is what, and where I'm going. ONE thing I know for sure is that GOd has his hands on the stearing wheel rather then just taken passenger or the back seat. I started down this path around my Junior year at Salem Academy where I was involved in...let's just face it...everything. From choir, chamber choir, jazz band and concert band, saxophone and guitar, to three sports a year and church, close to straight A's, camp counselor at Canyonview during the school year and summer, Lifeguard, student leader at school, and finally...God. What were my priorities and where did they fall. I saw that God was becoming the things I "said" I was doing it for, but so many times, I was leaving it up to my strength to do things on my own. My first official year as being a counselor at Canyonview was the best summer that I had had in terms of finding my road back to simply delighting in God's will for my life. I hadn't stawed off the path by any means, but I had felt like I had taken a few detours. God showed me that summer that life is more that thrills, and girls, and making money (which I still haven't done as an 8th summer veteran at camp hahaha) and that I could be content in the knowledge that GOD is in control, not me. I began journaling that summer for the first time and I have made a point to do it every summer since, not particulary perfect record, but practically everyday and most events. My teacher, Mr. Plato, was the one that inspired me in history class when he was telling me about his journals that he had since his senior year in highschool and saw that progress that he had made because of it. Journaling means writing down the events of the day, yes, but also your thoughts and prayers to God. He showed that it isn't the matter of perfect grammar or handwriting (which I almost have:) but the content and what you were praying for, how you were talking to God, and the things that you are dwelling on. I told my self, "why wait antother year, let's start now. It hasn't always been easy, but definately worth every extra hour or more of writing. Since then, I've seen so much growth and change in who I am as an individual through Christ, yet there is still so much that I need to work on. This year now, as a 20 year old in college as a Junior (blast the year I skipped 8th grade...) I can see that I am still the same 17 year old I was that summer, in all my craziness, joy for the little things in life, thrills for adventure and new and exciting things, but that I've grown up in maturity, not seeking the things that I once did in sinful desires or petty things that would bog most men down. I'm not perfect, nor will I ever be, but why not strive to be? Why are we scared to say "let's live a perfect life," not by the standars like the Pharisees, but in the way that is describe in the 3rd chapter of Colossians to not live immoral lives and to strive to be like Christ in action and in mind. Many more thoughts, poems, songs, and journal entries do I have, but that will be for another night. So signing out for the day,
~Richard of the Late Night Owls, the ones which go to bed late and are early to rise, the way I live life~