I have a confession to make

I am a horrible person. This is the panic that just lightninged through my mind about an hour ago – tomorrow night (Monday, the 22nd) I have too many shows to watch. Oh sure, I have TiVo, but it took me till just a little bit ago to realize that I have four and a half hours or programming of which I am addicted that all falls into Monday prime time. I know it looks bad now, but it gets worse. Because of my schedule, I get up early (3:30 am) so I really have to get to bed by ten at the latest. Now this is where it gets worse. I’m taking a Statistics class Tuesday and Thursday nights so I can’t spend all of Tuesday reveling in all my glorious audio visual entertainment. So here’s the bottom line. If we were trying really hard, I think we could watch The Hills at 7:00, then I might be able to watch Prison Break (8:00), so we could then catch Heroes at 9:00. But even after all that, there’s still two hours left of 24 and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking Phil is crazy. Well listen, I don’t blame you for thinking I’m crazy. It blows my mind that I have fallen this far. I can remember a time not too long ago, when almost everyone I knew started saying, “Is that your final answer?” and I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about – I’m not kidding about that.

Here’s the really horrible part – the way I feel right now about it, I think the only one I would be ok with letting go of is Studio 60. Giving up the four other shows? That would kill me. Yeah I’m sure I could muster the will power to cut out watching them, but I would try to watch vicariously through people I know who are also addicts of the shows. “What happened last night?! Has Hiro gotten to use his sword yet?! How many larynxes did Jack crush in one hour?! Lauren didn’t get back together with Jason, did she?! Has Michael kissed Sarah?!” This is what I would be harassing people with if I quick these shows cold turkey. And even if I was too ashamed to ask these questions, the questions would just float around my mind, festering, driving me mad. All this to say, I think I could give them up physically, but emotionally I don’t think I could do it in a faquillion years.

As these words move from my conscious mind, down to my fingers, and then onto this blog page, I am realizing that I’m worse off than I thought. There is no excuse – I watch too much television.

I can’t think of what else to say so this is it for now.

Things I Hate

(I got the idea to do this from a 9 year old with autism. I find it very freeing and I encourage you all to have your own "hate list")

- When people clap at the end of a movie -
- When people say, "excuse you" -
- Small drinks at fast food places –
- Chain restaurant –
- Chain emails –
- People driving slow in the left lane -
- Jason from Laguna Beach -
- Jessica from Laguna Beach -
- This season of alias -
- Emo haircuts -
- Elmo -
- People on Myspace who want to have like, a million friends -
- Lettuce wraps -
- Kids with too much school spirit -
- Crimes against humanity -
- Subway -
- Girls that love that notebook movie -
- Movie theaters that don't take student IDs -
- Parking at the AMC 20 theater -
- People who use the phrase "snail mail" -
- Danny Bonoduce's addiction -
- Fabian Basabe -
- People who use the term "hypocrite" more than once a month -
- People who use the term "ironic" more than once a month -
- People who make "quote signs" in the air when they talk more than once a week -
- The term "freedom fries" -
- People who use the word "literally" when they mean figuratively -
- Any story that says candy canes have anything to do with Jesus -
- The blurred line between burritos and wraps -
- People with zero sense of humor -
- Tom Cruise -
- Kim Kattrall -
- Tye Pennington -
- Paul Walker -
- Kirsten Dunst -
- When people say, "exspecially" or "liberry" or "drawlings" or "punkin" -
- Inexperienced sandwich artists -
- Ayla Brown -
- Dust ruffles -
- "Shams" -
- When people say, "We just need to love ON that guy" -

On Going to Egypt

In August of 2001, I lead a two-week mission to Egypt with nine high school and college students. I still have really mixed feelings about the trip. On one hand, I was really hoping to “do” a whole bunch of stuff for God and His Kingdom – I wanted to be able to come home saying how we had given testimonies and prayed for hundreds of people and people cried, fell down, and gave their lives to Christ (we didn’t see these things didn’t happen). On the other hand, now I see that God doesn’t always let us see what he’s doing even though he is always working and moving.

So with these things in mind, I go back and forth on whether or not the mission was a “success”. I really don’t like the idea of God using me to “do his thing” and not letting me see the fruit that comes from it. …Holy crap, that sounded insanely horrible. Like I said, I go back and forth. As lame as this sounds, it’s hard for me to believe that (even though I know He’s sovereign) God is working and moving when I can’t see Him doing it. This is really the big thing God taught me from this experience. It was extremely humbling to learn (really in front of my entire church) that God is the one in control (not me) and that He sometimes blesses us with getting to see the fruit. I guess taking God’s character and sovereignty into consideration, the whole thing was a success. God used us to do what he wanted to do. What if we would have said, “No” and not gone to Egypt or if we got mad and started saying, “That’s it God! We’re not making another move until we see some results!” God would have accomplished what he wanted to accomplish, he would have just done it without us.

This fact is what made the experience so humbling. I think I am so awesome but I’m wrong. God isn’t lucky to have me working for Him – I’m lucky to be included in what God is doing. The good news is that he includes us just simply because he loves us and he wants to be with us.