there is a cultural trend in my generation and the previous one, we are all waiting until we are older until we get married. my mom and grandma married at 21. I am 20 and would be okay with being married if that's where God calls, but everyone today thinks that 20 is way too young to get married. Most women are waiting until they are almost 30 to get married. so i was thinking why is this? I have several ideas, some have secular reasons and some Godly reasons...

1. Divorce. God has seen the pattern of divorce so prevalent in this society, so he is calling more of us to a longer season of singleness to know him better and to teach us about ourselves and each other so that we are truly complete in him when we do marry. However, this implies that we are actually seeking God's will for our lives and listening to him.

2. Feminism and the Male ego. We all want to have their our together and want to have made a name for ourselves in our careers before pursuing a relationship. With money being so difficult for a lot of people, this could be a decent idea, but what if you miss something God had for you because you were so focused on "my life must be perfect before I allow myself to be in a relationship?" We are sinners and our lives will never be perfect.

3. Immaturity and "Wild oats to sow." Our culture throws the idea of serial dating and kissing whoever and sleeping around in order to find a good relationship. Therefore, many of us spend our lives partying and dating and hooking up unconcerned with the future, unconcerned with legacy, unconcerned with how Jesus modeled relationships. We go throughout college single because we don't want to be tied down. We don't want responsibility. We are told to "get to know" as many men and women as possible before you are married because once you're married...that is it. We think of marriage as a prison (ball and chain) instead of a beautiful representation of Christ's love for the church and taking her as his bride. Complete opposites.

Maybe there isn't a reason, but it is interesting to consider. I would like to think it is the first one, maybe it is for some, but the other 2 reasons are indeed what some are doing in our culture. However, God is calling us to be careful in who we date and all the more careful in choosing who we will marry. Singleness is a gift and can/should never be taken back once it is gone. So marriage at 21 or at 35, whatever would glorify my God!

Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you..this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against your brothers in this way and would their weak conscience YOU SIN AGAINST CHRIST. Therefore if what i eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.
1 Cor 8:9-13

Or if how I dance, how I dress, how I speak causes my brothers or sisters to sin, I will stop it so I will not cause him to fall. O how I wish we lived like this. I wish we valued each other like we value Christ. This is convicting, challenging, and heart breaking, because I definitely do not see this happening. What if my friends cared enough about me to not drink around me because they know I'm tempted and not 21? What if they loved me enough to not make sexual jokes because they know I think it's inappropriate and it's hard? Honestly, I'd still feel bad cos I'd feel like they were just trying to baby me while I was around. Not so much with the drinking, but with the joking, but with the joking I feel that's a heart issue and we shouldn't be joking like that at all. "out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." But what if we loved each other enough to do this? This is why I've been trying to dress more modestly lately. This is the biggest conviction I've ever had to do so, that if what I do causes my brother to fall I will not do it because that is true love. So I will cover myself because I love my brothers. I just wonder who Jesus is trying to be right now and how are we limiting it because of "freedom" becoming too free to the point of being completely in the world. it just doesn't seem right that your Christian friends joke about sex and drink more than your non-Christian friends. "out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." isnt that holy? shouldn't we not defile it with coarse joking? i just don't think we should be really accepting some of the things which we have been accepting for years.

"seek first his kingdom."

holy cow i am bored. so this blog will have nothing intelligent or interesting, just me venting and sorting out some technical stuff.
so...i think i'm going to end up paying about $700 to park my car at my apartment building. the website says it's $85 a month but i hope they don't be like you have to pay for a whole semester instead of monthly...cos the main reason i need my car is to get to awol (well and to go to the guy's house and such but wtev) and we don't have much awol in december and the semester doesn't start up again until january 22nd and i think i'm gonna be out of town most of winter break anyway so i dont wanna pay for those months or may cos we don't have awol in may...and i dunno if they call a "month" like aug 15 to sept 15 or all of august cos i'm moving in aug 15 so i dont wanna pay for all of august if i'm only getting 15 days. but the dumb people when i call and when i email can't answer my questions straightly. obnoxious. i love this school but this is lame. aw well i'm trying to look at it this way, if i went to bethel i'd be paying $30,000 a year for everything and i'm paying close to $20,000...maybe i can spring for the parking...i really really want my car. and the streets are not a good option as i discovered this morning. if i'm coming home late at night i do not want to be walking alone in the dark out there. i think the money for the safety of myself and my car may be worth it...except i am very poor. but i just had an interview and if they give me the job i'd be able to work at the library still this month and start working at this place for the rest of august...might have to do some schedule jumbling at the library but hopefully it'd be okay. that'd be nice cos i'll get more hours. the info desk job pays $8 per hour until i've done 250 hours and then it pays almost $8.50. so if i like it hopefully i could work like full time next summer and get like $8.50 and i guess you can pick up shifts being security at random coffman stuff like checking bags or coats and get $10 an hour...wow this would be sweet if it worked out. i don't interview well. i always fumble the questions they ask and talk too fast and act awkward. bah! i need to take that class like showing you how to write a resume and interview and all that. i should cos i need some crap credits to graduate early like i want/could. i wonder if i'll end up going to law school . William Mitchel is about $15,000 for tuition. that's pretty much the cheapest i've found. if i could get reciprocity for UND (which looks like MN doesn't which SUCKS) their tuition is like $9000. I kinda don't want to live in Grand Forks, but holy cow St. Thomas tuition is like $30,000. That's just tuition, include costs of living (could live at home...nooooo Steph wants to be married by then and living at home will not be conducive to that plan) and I'm up to like $40,000 a year. Ack, why is life so expensive??

Do not worry about your life. The clothes in your closet, the numbers on the scale, the amount in your bank account. Isn't life more important than the comforts of money and skinny-ness? And why do you worry about where and when you'll shop? Look at Indian women who have no money and yet dress so vibrantly and full of life. Even an abercrombie model in all their hotness does not look as beautiful as she. Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will come and go regardless of your stress.

this summer is going by waaaay too slow.

tonight i realized that i am a fundamentalist. to be honest i don't think i really grasped what the word meant and i think i don't fully, but we had some pretty intense theological conversation tonight and i realized yeah, i kind of have become a fundamentalist. and i think it's right.
i believe GOD wrote the Bible and it is perfect and true and those who call themselves Christians need to use the Bible as the be all and end all because the whole Bible is ultimately about Jesus. Yes men are flawed and imperfect but one way or another in God's omnipotence he oversaw all that was being put into the Bible because "in the beginning was the Word [big W not little w] and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning." Jesus was always there and his Word is GOD in the flesh. We cannot base our lives off feelings which are fleeting and flawed. How do we always know for sure we are hearing God's voice? The Bible is our gift, because through the Bible we can experience who God is. He tells us his character on each page.
i believe God is all powerful. i believe God is always present. i believe God is all knowing. and i believe his word is perfect and true. if that makes me a fundamentalist, fine i accept the negative connotations with the word fundamentalist and take the label.

i don't want to make wrong assumptions but it's like i can't fight my woman's intuition to think/overthink when i observe the actions of others. however i'm not stupid, and as much as i'd like to assume the best and give others the benefit of the doubt...

i hate alcohol. i hate that it's such a big deal for people. i hate how it pretty much killed my grandpa physically and did completely destroy his family. i hate how it is such a temptation for so many. i hate how people get addicted. i hate how it turns good people into being irresponsible and inconsiderate. that's why God is God and we are not. he knew what he was talking about when he said "hey, don't get drunk it's gonna make you do dumb stuff. instead, be filled with the spirit." filled with the spirit. that's all the drink i need.

it is not good to be alone he said. how can i satisfy my desire to serve others when i am going to be the one in need of other's service?

will i be able to fulfill my calling? will my friends, family, strangers, and the rest of the world be okay with me doing something else? will they believe me when i say that my desire to be a mom is just as strong as my desire to be a lawyer and i know God doesn't mind whichever way i go as long as i glorify him? the world does not accept that. this world of feminism and working mothers does not accept a stay at home mom as a full time job. and i don't need to do it forever, but for a period of time i do because i want to be the woman raising my kids. i want them to know me and i want to know them. why is that so iffy? shouldn't it be beautiful? i guess one could think i'm wasting my 4 year degree but it's not like i'm never ever going to work and my major is going to be diverse enough that i could do many jobs. and even marriage and kids aside...i don't know if law school is for me. i don't feel God called me to law school specifically, it is just one way i can satisfy the calling he's placed in me to fight injustice. it's broad, it's not limited just to law school - so why do i limit it? children having crappy parents and not believing they are loved and growing up not knowing the goodness of Jesus Christ is the ultimate injustice.

Sometimes it seems whenever i feel i'm getting a handle on it all and really understanding the character of God, something is thrown into the mix and messes me all up again. maybe that's how it should be though. we will never be able to have it all together and life will never make perfect sense, otherwise what would we need God for? I need God cos I am such a mess and completely depraved individual. My sins deserve death. How humbling to really consider, and really understand, that every sin is a wound Christ had to bear on the cross. Each transgression. Sometimes it seems Christianity is all about finding balances. Because it's finding the balance between not dwelling on sins to the point of self-deprication and admitting we are depraved people which we can humbly accept grace. And we'll never be able to completely get a handle on it. So praise be to God, cos he can handle it for us.