A Christian Teen's Thoughts

God Sighting

A christian teen — Mon, 09 May 2011 22:24:24 +0000

After tennis practice today I went to the local bike path to run. This was the first time I ran there for a really long time. I stretched in the pavilion by the parking area. While there, a kid rode up at the same time I came approximately. He got a drink from the fountain and we both were silent, him standing by his bike, me stretching. Then he said “It’s really nice outside today.” So I said “Yeah, its finally warm. The conversation continued about where we both lived. And other things. So we got to talking about our churches and he asked if I believed in God. When I replied “Yes.” He asked if I believed in heaven. I said yes again. So he asked what I thought we had to do to get there. I replied we had to accept God’s grace and that Jesus died for us. I said that there is no way we can get there on our own. So he said “Exactly.” Then he quoted Ephesians 2:8

“For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”

So I said it was cool to find someone else my age who actually cared about God.

This incredible conversation was with some kid I never met and will never see again probably. He was from a different town. But he restored my faith in teen christians. I always wish at school that people would stop swearing, doing bad things, and more would be religious. This kid showed me that there are Christians my age out there. Thank you very sincerely Bo.

New Direction

A christian teen — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:35:57 +0000

Hello to everyone who reads this blog! It has been a very long time since I have written a blog post. (January!?) I really need to write more than I have been. Hopefully I will get back into doing so in the near future. A suggestion has been given for a new direction for this blog to take and I may be making changes in the near future to how it is authored. So keep watch for these changes. Thanks for reading.

Struggling before Aid

A christian teen — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 21:42:13 +0000

This post is from an experience that I had about two weeks ago. There is a community outreach center in our town that is a fairly new organization. They serve the people of the community with a food distribution center and a clothing shop, among other things. They moved into a large building in our town, and fixed up much of it. But the upstairs is still being worked on. The large room of the upstairs part has a floating floor, made of all of these 2 foot by 2 foot metal tiles, pieced into a floor. Each square has a carpet square glued on top. In the course of my volunteer work there, I was asked to assist in the removal of these carpet squares, they kinda looked like this.

This turned out to be a real chore. Myself and a few other people pried at the carpet squares with screwdrivers, prybars, crowbars, and pulled on them as hard as we could. Each square took about 5-10 minutes to remove. And after some time this resulted in pain in our hands from prying on these squares. We all thought that there had to be an easier way to remove them all. Please understand the room is quite large, and I estimated that there were about 300+ of these squares in all. We suggested that we might try to apply heat to the carpets and then remove them. But we struggled on for the remaining time that day.

The next time I came back, I discovered that some of the other workers had brought a heat gun (Like a superhot hair dryer) with them and were heating the square as it was being peeled off the floor tile. If this was done, each square came off in about a minute instead of the previous 5-10 per tile. It was by no means easy, as we still had to peel them off with much difficulty. But what we thought would help us actually made it much easier to remove them.

This very long story has a point in that it is a parallel to our lives. Many of us know that if we accepted Christ into our life it would make it much easier to live it. I don’t mean that it makes life completely easy after you do, as life is never completely easy. But this choice can be. Without Christ, we struggle on through our problems alone, not making much progress and often getting hurt. (Just like us prying off the carpets the first day!) But if we accept His help in our life, we can do all things, like the heat gun saving us a lot of struggling in our job. So, if you are in this situation, I hope that you will stop hesitating and ask Him into your life. It will change everything if you get to know him.

Dry Erase Boards

A christian teen — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 00:45:59 +0000

The other day I was thinking about what to do a new post on. It has been too long, so I wanted to write one. As I cast my thoughts around, I came up with an interesting one. The new chalkboard in most schools is the dry erase board. It is essentially the same thing, but more modern and erases with less mess. So I realized this was like our lives. Before we have Jesus in our lives, we can try to erase the bad deeds that we have done in the past, but there is always something left. We just can’t do it. (Like chalk dust all over our lives). But if we choose Jesus’ way, we can upgrade the chalk boards of our lives to dry erase boards. This allows us to ask for the help of The Eraser-Our Savior. Jesus! He can help us rid our lives of the ~~chalk dust~~ sins that won’t go away. He will always be ready to help out. Always! All we have to do is ask for his presence. Give it a try! It works! Merry Christmas!

Before: After:

Unseen Sources

A christian teen — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 21:07:41 +0000

With tomorrow being Thanksgiving, the thought which came to me today was even more interesting. While driving to my grandparents’ house for thanksgiving, I saw a fire hydrant on the side of the road. Fire hydrants may not especially have attracted your notice before, but think back to when you have seen one. (Here’s a pic to help)

The one that I saw looked like a normal one, but the hydrant was higher off the ground than the typical hydrant is. This revealed the pipe which fed the water to the hydrant. Seeing this, I realized that I never thought about where the water came from that comes from a fire hydrant. I never thought about the source of the water other than the part that I could see.
Then, thinking for some reason about this later, I realized that the water is like our gifts. We can’t physically see with our eyes where all of the good things that we have in life come from. In fact, if you don’t think about where they came from, you may never find out. But if you try to understand where these great things come from, you will eventually come to know that God is the source of everything good that we have! So give thanks to God for all of the gifts you have this year during the holiday. Show the source of your gifts to others through your actions (And be happy that you know the source of them!)

“O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.” Psalm 95:1-6

Run the Race

A christian teen — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 18:54:03 +0000

Today I am sharing one of my favorite bible verses with a thought to go with it. This passage is about comparing life and running, and since I am a runner, I like this comparison. Paul wrote:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

Hebrews 12:1.

I run myself, and as the running season comes to a close, I thought of this verse and decided to give my thoughts. I think this passage tells us to keep strong in our faith, and to lose the things that keep our faith from becoming stronger, or cause us to waver in our faith. If you keep this strong faith, you will feel the power of God and he will help you in your life. Just as it is tough to finish running in a race, it is often tough to keep the faith when the world is telling us otherwise. But if you do finish the race, the rewards are simply amazing! (And worth every trouble and difficulty felt on the way there. So, show your endurance in faith, just as a runner must have endurance during his race. If you do this, you will get far.

Free! (Really)

A christian teen — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:39:30 +0000

Do you like free stuff? I love the challenge of finding all of the different ways to get things for free. Like entering the codes in the caps of bottles to get points. And there is a reward service that gives you points for entering the final clue from Jeopardy every day. And then there’s some search engines, like Goodsearch, that give rewards just for doing online searches. All it takes is some effort. Not money, just effort. And effort is totally free.

God’s love and salvation works the same way. He gives it to us, completely free, even though it is totally Undeserved. Since he sent his son, any of us that want to love him and experience his love in return can do so. For free! All it takes is a little bit of effort in asking Jesus into your life, and saying that you want to know him. Have you done this yet? It’s free!

Scripted Life

A christian teen — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 19:32:21 +0000

As I was thinking about what to write about today, I thought about what I did today. And I had an idea for a post. I watched an episode of a television show today on DVD, with the commentary by some of the actors and writers on. They talked about some of the ideas that they had, and some of the other details and why they included them. And I had the thought that this is often how life works. Not all of the actors in the show knew what the writers had planned, or even the reasons that they put some details in the plot. We in life have a similar role. We do not always know the reason that God makes some things happen, but he does, and that is all that is important. We, like the actors, might not know how things will tie together later on, but we can live life and trust that He does know. And after things do happen, we can look back on them occasionally and see the plans that God had, just as the actors and show fans can after a season is finished. (And realize He knows what he is doing.)

Grapefruit and Graham Crackers

A christian teen — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:31:08 +0000

I know…what a weird title right!? But that’s what the thought that suddenly came to me today was about. I was eating lunch. After a sandwich, I decided to eat a grapefruit. If you know anything about grapefruits, they have an extremely bitter taste. I peeled it like an orange and ate it all! Wow, was it bitter! After finishing, I had a very bad bitter taste on my tongue. So I went upstairs and ate some graham crackers with frosting spread on top. If you have never done this, I recommend it, since it tastes great! Then a while later, I realized that what I had just eaten was a great parallel to life!

Let me explain. In life, there are many bad “bitter” things. We all have our share, and even though we don’t want or ask for them, they still come to us all. But if we work through these “bitter” moments, like finishing the whole entire grapefruit, God will help us see how wonderful “sweet” life really can be. Like the frosted graham crackers. He will give us all that we need to make it through life. Just put your trust in him, and work through the hard times. Things will get better!

Amazing “Everything” Drama

A christian teen — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:57:54 +0000

This is an amazing drama that was performed at a Mission Trip I was on. It gives me the chills every time I see it. The song is “Everything” by Lifehouse. It is just incredible.