Rethinking, Reevaluating, Reviving, etc.

This is a lot of what has been going through my mind in the past three or four days. Some of these topics will probably end up showing up again later.

Firstly, I'm rethinking rethinking college (That means I'm thinking about not going). I just don't see any point right now. I was considering architecture but it would require so much time, money and work and I don't even know if I would enjoy it. Thinking about what is actually in my future, couch surfing is looking more and more likely. I would love to take a year off and just travel the world couch surfing the whole way and putting my faith into practice... Like a mission trip, and a learning experience. I don't know how practical that is right now, I would need some money. Regarding money, I'm once again thinking that I really wouldn't mind making chump change and living on that. For one, I could live on little, I'm doing it now. For two, I would rather learn to be financially responsible with a small portion of money than with a large portion. Couch surfing is also looking super-appealing even if I do start going to college and even later in life. I'd love to have my home open to travelers - a constant flow of new people to meet and serve.

Something that's really hard for me is having to sit in on so many classes. Don't get me wrong, the classes are amazing, and that's why it's so hard. It seems like every week I'm getting convicted about something new that I never get an opportunity to put into practice before another week goes by and some more things are added to my pile of ways I need to change. The change seems impossible to me right now, like, I feel like I could never attain the things I'm convicted of because I'm too weak. It's overwhelming at times. The way I try to look at it is that God has got me thinking heavily on these things for a reason - At least I'm thinking about them now. What we have our mind focused on is what we eventually become, to some degree, and if I'm focusing on positive changes, it's only a matter of time before God shows me exactly how to change or slowly make the change in me without me really knowing. Like I posted about a while ago, "Love God, and do what you want," I shouldn't be worried about God's will for my future, just live out how I know how to (intentionally) and expect change to come naturally.

Relating to that, I've come to understand how useless I am as a person... Mostly through my former romantic relationship. I read somewhere that our goal as men when relating to women (all relationships, friends, dating, etc) should be this: The woman we're in contact with should be better off having met us. This is really convicting, because often as men, we want to see "how far" we can get, or how we can make women be more attracted to us, not taking into account the damage we're doing to them and how much worse off they'll be having met us. I read this before going into the relationship and now looking back, realize I completely failed. I was trying to evaluate my impact on her and realize I probably contributed nothing of a positive and lasting importance in her life. I shared this and it was affirmed. This is a very humbling thing, probably the most humbling thing that has ever happened to me. This event got me thinking of ways I could possibly impact people in the future or ways I could have done things differently in the past. I came up with nothing. I realized that as a person, I have absolutely nothing to offer anyone. I think this is a place that we need to come to in order for God to start using us for bigger and better things. This is not a place you can come to by reading something like this. I'm fairly sure you have to come to the point where you experience something like this yourself - God has to bring you here. It's a weird place to be. I'm not saying that now I'm even close to a perfect vessel by any means, but right now I feel like that if God used me for something big I would recognize it as Him, not me - because I know nothing good could come from me. This seems like something that would get me down and feeling sorry for myself, but it hasn't, which is stranger than ever... Praise God.

While we're on the topic if my former romantic relationship, I'd also like to share something I've also very recently discovered about myself (and maybe about you!). All through grade school I've always enjoyed having one-sided crushes - sure, they made me miserable and depressed, but there's a certain romance and mystery to be completely infatuated with someone who wouldn't ever consider you in that way. I've come to find I enjoy that romance and mystery (I like to think I'm a romantic), but I didn't really know that until now. This is a problem, because reveling in that is very self destructive and is in fact, living in sin. There's so much focus on yourself and the object of your infatuation that there's no room for God at all. I realized that after we broke up, my thoughts slowly started drifting in that direction again - a very bad thing, especially since I had already understood, accepted, and agreed with her reasons for breaking it off. It started happening in such a way that I didn't really notice, but before I knew it, I was doing it again - not wanting to give up my feelings for her because I enjoyed my misery. This taught me something very important that I should have picked up a long time ago - taking our thoughts (or attitude) captive is essential. I've been talking so much lately about how we need to live our lives intentionally - constantly be making decisions to glorify Christ. I now know that we also need to be completely intentional with our attitudes toward things. In my case, I need to change my attitude to: "Breaking up was the right thing to do and I can accept that, and if old feelings start coming up, I need to push them aside before they can grab a hold of me - I'm not in love anymore." For me, declaring something like this out loud makes it official (Make sure no one is listening. Awkward!). It's very easy to decide not to be in love anymore if you take this approach. Another step I took is completely removing any trace of her from my life - this meant taking her off my friends on Facebook, last.fm, Skype, and stop reading her blog, and since I don't live anywhere near her, I don't have to worry about that. Maybe some people can go right back to being "just friends," but I'm far too weak to handle something like that. When there's not tons of things all around you to remind you of the one you used to be so close with, it starts making it a lot easier to get over because there's less opportunity for your focus to get shifted back to those feelings. If you're in a situation where you have to see the person on a regular basis, I can imagine it to be a lot weirder and a lot harder. I pity the man that has to deal with this kind of a situation.

I think there's more. I don't remember and I'm super tired and should probably be getting to bed. I hope this was beneficial to someone.