Post 8: Busy, Busy, Busy...

Well, I had an awesome weekend at retreat. I love getting together with cru people and just hanging out and getting to know people better, but I most definitely also enjoy being challenged by the messages I hear and the group discussions! Some people were a little crazy and went jumping in the lake after they cut a hole in the ice... I do NOT handle cold temperatures well. If someone payed me $100 then I would have done it, but nobody offered. haha.

The only problem with retreat is that it usually means that you have a bunch of work to do when you get back to campus. As of me writing these words right now, it's 11:40 PM... make that 11:41. Time is just flying by. I still have to do at least linear algebra which is due tomorrow along with my mastering physics which is overdue that I cannot get greater than a 50% on now. I may do that tomorrow though, I'm not sure.

As for tomorrow, I have to wake up at 8:45, get ready in the morning, drive down at 9:25 so I can get to class by 10. My first class is Basic electronics till 11, then from 11 to 12 I have Physics. Then from 12 to 2 I have world cultures. From 2 to 3 I have Computer and Operating System Architecture, and from 3 to 4 I have Linear Algebra. After that I have a 1 hour break to eat and hopefully then is when I'll be able to do my mastering physics homework. At 5, I have a TNT planning meeting for Campus Crusade followed by a Socials team meeting at 6:30. At 7, I need to decide between either going to a freshman body evangelism outreach event planning meeting or going to Bible Study. Either one will probably go until 9 which is when Men's Leadership Bible study is. At 10 o'clock I need to register for classes promptly so I make sure I get into everything I need to get into. After Men's Leadership Bible study, I am gonna talk to a friend about some things and by the time I get home, it's sure to be at least as late as 11:30. At this point I'm going to wish I was dead... ok, so not really.

I actually quite enjoy my Monday's, but this one has the extra freshman body evangelism outreach event planning meeting thing and my class registration in addition to the usual hustle and bustle. I know God's gonna take care of me and bring me through it one hour at a time. I just hope I'll be able to stay away in my classes. I got very little sleep last night and I'll probably get very little sleep tonight because of the time it already is and knowing that I still need to start and finish my linear algebra. God is good though and he loves me and if I'm doing my best to serve Him in everything I do, then how could the day possibly be bad?

I think if you've been reading along with my blog, you'll realize that I'm a reflective learner which I think sort of makes it for a better read personally, but when I sort through the thoughts in my head, especially when I'm writing them out, I can take more out of it and learn more. I had to definitely pray about the ride situation with retreat and it did all work out. Everyone made it down ok and that's what matters. If I slightly annoyed some people with too many emails... well so be it. God knows my heart.

One of these days I'm going to write letters thanking certain individual people in Campus Crusade who have really made a big difference in my life. I really look up to many of them as Godly people who are living for God and by following their examples, I am learning to become more of a leader and to grow closer to God. Something God's shown me recently through others is that we WILL be persecuted for living for God. It's written plainly in the Bible. If we are wanting to pursue God, then we will be persecuted. If we're living comfortable easy lives, then we're not living the way we should be living. I would count it a joy to be persecuted. I don't say that to sound proud by any means. However, to know that I am serving God and have His approval (the only approval that truly matters), then if anyone else is against me, what have I to worry about.

I need prayers for guidance in my life. I continue to pray for wisdom, because I know in my own power, I make plenty of dumb choices, but if I rely on the power of the Holy Spirit living within me and truly have faith, then God will be able to do great things through me... things of which I want no credit for. I STILL have yet to be sharing the gospel. I MUST get out there and share with people. I find myself getting busy, but that's what the devil would like me to think.

Ephesians 6:12 says: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." When our non Christian friends come up to us and try to make Christianity look bad by twisting it around or by referring to horrible examples of Christians and defining Christianity by them, we need to realize that we're not fighting with Jesus against them. Rather we are fighting for them to escape the blinders of sin and to see the light which is in Christ Jesus.

I have so many more thoughts and things to talk about, however, it is now 12:01 on Monday morning and I need to get to work on my homework. Thanks for taking the time to read this if you have. It can be quite a mouthful sometimes.

Post 7: Frustrating day

Well, everyone has their up days and down days. Most of my days have been great recently, but not this one... at least not so far.

It all started with me being volutold (volunteered and told what I was to do...) to be the ride coordinator for Spring Retreat. I've never gone to a retreat for Crusade before, so I don't know really how far away it is, how to get there or how coordinating rides is usually done. So, I asked people for help which seemed to be pretty scarce. Eventually I talked to Stacy Coleman who ended up emailing me with vague details as to how to handle it.

Well, I didn't know that Lake Ellen was in a different time zone and didn't know how far away it is. I asked a whole bunch of people when we should meet up at the Rosza sign for departure. Nobody knew the answer to that, but I got a few suggestions and someone said 5 maybe. Well, I figured being a little early is better than being a little bit late, so I pick that time. Then I'm told to make sure everyone has a ride and people who need to go late or early would be able to get there and back.

So, I decide to email the Crusade list and ask everyone that if they're going, they should email me telling me whether they're driving (and how many people they can take), or riding and whether they need to leave early or late or not. I get some emails back, but not from everybody. Well today, (the day of departure), I get an email finally with a list of all the people who are going to retreat... so what do I do with that? Well I figured I'd put together a spreadsheet together so I can sort people out and make sure everyone has rides with everyone. It took me like 2 hours+ to put that together trying to iron out all the inconsistencies with people leaving at different times and assign people as appropriate according to what I was told people were doing.

So at this point, I send out another email with the list of people and who they should go with. Well, after I send this out, it is THEN that people feel it is important to finally email me and tell me they already had other plans and were leaving at a different time rather than earlier when I first asked about it. All of a sudden people have all these different driving plans that I wasn't told about and I'm supposed to coordinate all this? So, I'm forced to send out yet ANOTHER email to the whole list (which is a lot of people), and by doing so essentially spamming them, explaining to them that they need to completely forget about the spreadsheet I just sent out because it was so messed up at that point to just meet up at the sign at 5 or as soon as they could make it. I also told them we'd probably be leaving around 5:20-5:30 since apparently that's the norm.

To make a long story short: next time I'm volunteered to do something that is somewhat significant by myself,especially regarding things I've never done before or don't know anything about, I'm Not going to do it unless I have someone else teaching me how to go about doing it first. I was trying to help people out and have it run smoothly by making that list, but instead it caused more of a headache for everyone.

All that aside, I am very excited for Retreat. Luckily I have a little bit of time to relax before hand. Hopefully people won't be too mad at me for making everything so confusing. My day's gonna be turning around really quick and it'll be awesome by the time everyone's rides are taken care of! I got that out of my system and now I'm ready to go! woot!

Thanks for readin',
later!

Day 6: Just some thoughts

Well, This past week was definitely not quite as exciting as Big Break. Should it be? Certainly the climate bonuses in Florida were amazing, but the best part of that trip was seeing God work through me and everyone in Campus Crusade. Should I be seeing that here at Tech? I told myself I'd share the gospel with at least one person per week. I don't think I've done that this past week so this following week I'll have to talk to 2 people. I don't want to make it sound like I'm just doing it for the sake of doing it to increase my numbers or "score" or anything like that. I truly care about people and I feel they need to hear the gospel presented in a loving way. I just find myself being so busy all the time. Do I leave myself with time for facebook? Yes. Do I leave myself time for hanging out with Christian friends? Yes. Could I use facebook less and hang out with Christian friends less to introduce myself to new people? You Betcha in terms of time, but I haven't been.

I think one of the biggest things I slacked off on this week was reading the Bible. I have been spending a lot of time in pretty consistent prayer, but reading the Bible on my own time by myself is something I plan on doing over the course of this week starting with doing that right after this blog post.

Having said that, I'm really looking forward to retreat! It's gonna be my first ever Campus Crusade retreat (other than men's retreats), because I was not involved in Campus Crusade during the first one. Foolish me, haha.

That reminds me. A lot of times I tell my friends who were my close friends in high school that they should join some college Christian organization. They all say they're too busy or they just don't really want to. I was that way at first, but then I went to Campus Crusade and the people there really cared about me and were interested in my life and they invested time in getting to know me. This was different than in my Christian high school which is why I keep coming back. I really love the people in Campus Crusade and the organization as a whole and what it does. Sometimes though, people get the wrong impression when I talk about it. They think I'm pushing them into campus crusade and they view it sorta like a cult... They know it's not a cult, but it definitely does seem to absorb most of my time outside of class. My brother in particular looks down at me for this. He thinks I totally ditched my high school friends still in the area or in high school. It's not that I don't want to hang out with them, it's just that I've met new friends who share more similar interests as me and are really growing closer to God which is great! I am praying for my old friends that they'll also pursue a relationship with God as that has totally changed me into a different person.

I was a Christian in high school, yes, but I was not living my life for God, I was living it for myself which is actually considered to be one of the most miserable kinds of lives. I would now much rather invest my time in other people and sharing the gospel. I just need to get over the fact that I'm a somewhat shy person and it's difficult initiating conversations with new people for me. However, as God has showed me over spring break, I know if I rely on Him, He will work through me despite my weaknesses. The more I trust God and take steps of faith, the more rewarding my life is. It truly does give me a joy and a peace that I cannot comprehend... which reminds me of a verse in Philippians 4.

Philippians 4:5-7 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

It's so cool when God shows you that His word is truth. If anyone reading this does not know God personally, I would love to show them how. It truly has changed my life and I want to share it with others. It's by no means "easy" to live for God, but it's definitely more rewarding both on earth and my rewards in Heaven will be greater the more I live for God!

Well, I sort of changed my mood from ok to really good and now I'm excited to read the Bible and have my personal time! Woot!

Well thanks for reading. That's all folks!

Day 5: BEST WEEK OF MY LIFE!!!!

Well, I just got back from Florida and had the time of my life! God really used everyone who went on that trip and I don't believe it's possible to not have been impacted in some great way. I was sharing the gospel with people all over the beach, swimming in the ocean and the lagoon pool. I got to hang out with a whole bunch of my friends and grow closer to them as well as meet some new friends. I honestly don't know how the week could have gone better. It is so hard to be back in Houghton where there is snow and having to go back to school, but God will take care of me. I learned I can fully rely on God and submitting my life to Him make it so fulfilling!!! The following is a story I wrote down about someone Megan Beyer and me talked to about the Gospel. I have talked to quite a few others and at least one of them came to Christ. This girl Brittany did not right after I talked to her, but she came so much closer. Here is a copy and paste of the story:

Megan and I decided to go up to this guy who was sitting by himself and drinking a beer. We came up to him and used the game Soularium. We turned the conversation over to spiritual things and he seemed very uninterested. Eventually, a friend of his named Brittany came on over to sit next to him. When she saw the pictures we were showing him, she was very interested and was almost grabbing for the pictures not yet knowing what they were for. So we asked her the first question on the sheet which asked you to pick three different pictures which describe their life. I can’t remember which pictures she picked, but somehow we ended up changing the conversation over to spiritual things. We asked her that if she were to die, what would happen to her. She asked, “Do you mean, where do I go?” We said yes, and she said that she believed in heaven and hell. When asked where she thought she was going, she said Hell. She used to go to church when she was younger as more of a ritual type of thing, but everyone in their family chose their own religion so to speak. Well I asked her that if she could know 100% for sure that she could go to heaven, would she want to hear how and she said yes. We went through the KGP with her and she seemed to be very interested in what it had to say. The way we approached her about it was that we just wanted to share with her what we believe and why and she was very open to it. When we got to the prayer part, I asked her if it was the desire of her heart to pray that prayer and she said sometimes and looked a little confused. We went back over a few things in the KGP and she seemed to really be interested. I could tell she was not ready to commit her life to Christ right at that moment and pushing her to hard to do so would be what Bill O’Conner calls “bruising the fruit.” She needed time to think about it. After we got through it, she started crying and told us that she was so glad that we were out on the beach sharing what she knew was truly important to us. It meant so much to her that we were not out partying and drinking like most people in Panama City Beach do on their spring breaks. After we had explained everything we could, she actually asked us before we got a chance to offer her the booklet if she could have it. Along with the KGP, we gave her a card from the Soularium game with our email addresses on the back of it. She was truly moved by us coming up to talk to her. She was a local who lived 45 minutes away and nobody had ever come up and shared with her the gospel on the beach before. It was great to see Christ working in her life. Although at that moment, she did not come to Christ, she definitely moved on the scale of coming to and growing in Christ from about a negative 5 to a negative .5. I am praying that she will come to Christ, or at least email one of us so that we could keep in contact and share with her more. This is just one of the many stories I had this week.

Isn't God amazing?!

Day 4: Day of Departure

Today, in less than 2 hours I'm leaving for Florida. Am I excited beyond words? (lack of words inserted here confirming a "yes" to the question.)

It's gonna be awesome! I still have a bit of a cold... hopefully my nose won't be running non-stopped all the way down. I think I remembered everything I am gonna be wanting to bring, but I guess time will tell. The anticipation is coursing through my veins!

Yeah, ok, I don't really know what else to blog about as of yet. I sure will once I get down there but am not sure if I'm gonna actually post until I get back. It depends on the wireless situation.

Cya'll later!

Day 3: Praise God!

I was listening to the song "The Power of the Cross" while reading Romans 11:33-36. It was a really cool combination and made the verse mean more to me. I thought it was cool. Here are the verses:
Romans 11
³³Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
³⁴"Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?"
³⁵"Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?"
³⁶For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

I'm looking forward to Big Break so much! One day and we're heading out!!!

Day 2: part 2 - Excitement!

Well, now I have more time to post but God just showed me something REALLY cool! I was wanting to take my power converter on the trip down to Florida because people are going to want to probably charge their laptops so we could watch movies or whatever else like charge cell phones. However, for the longest time I was unable to find my power converter. I had just got home and decided to pray that God would lead me to the power converter so I wouldn't have to waste time looking for it for a long time. Well, God showed me that I should look in the porch. I didn't want to look outside in the van or in my brothers car anyways. So, I went in the front porch, looked to the right and there it was.

I have no idea how it got there and I could not find it before, but because I prayed about it and asked God to help me find it, He pulled through! Now some of you reading this may think that it is such a small thing. Well, we are asked to pray for everything and if we cannot be faithful in little things, how are we supposed to be faithful in big things. God is showing me that he cares about even my smallest of needs.

This also reminds me of another time this year that cannot be explained any other way other than that God's had was fully in control of the situation. Earlier this school year in the fall, I had parked in the Rosza lot and had parked in a place that wasn't actually a parking spot because the lot was full of cars and I didn't have time to park up at St. Al's and get to class on time, so I just parked it there temporarily. Well, I went to class and heard from a friend that a lot of people were getting tickets lately for parking in the wrong spots, so I began to pray about the situation trusing that God's will would be done and that it would be His will to keep my car free from a parking ticket, because it would go on my dad's bill (it's registered under his name). Well, I came back to find that every single car all around me had tickets on their windows... Well, what about mine? Mine had no ticket. I couldn't believe it. I was surrounded by cars with tickets who had parked there both before and after me and everyone but me got one. Could this have been because of prayer?! You better believe it! Sometimes small things like this really excite me.

With these things in mind, I know that if we are praying about Big break as a large group and all fully submitting to God's will, then He is going to do something great down in Florida in the lives of those down there on Break as well as in the lives of us going. I'm so excited to share the gospel with others! I just need to pray for the courage as I am naturally a shy person. If I do not share the gospel, it's like telling others that I'm ok with them burning in Hell forever. That's something I need to keep in mind!

Well, I need to get working on some homework for tonight and need to sleep to finally get better from being sick, so come back more to read more later!

- Nate Anderson

Day 2: So Much to Look Forward To

Today has been a pretty busy day so far. It started off with a class that was pretty frustrating. Our teacher assigned the second homework assignment all semester... This was considered official homework that was due today. However, we got to class and she didn't take it because she didn't want to grade it, so I spent like 3+ hours on that assignment and it wasn't even collected for a grade! I have to admit it was quite disappointing, but then we also had a quiz. The quiz was over what we did on the homework basically. So now, in a short half hour, i had to repeat what I did basically with less a chance of it being right since I didn't have as long to think about it. In the end, I think I did ok, although, with her you never really can tell until you get it back. She likes us to show all of our work.

After that class, I went to Physics and had a review for an exam that went pretty well I guess. Following physics was World Cultures... my most disliked college class so far. We had to hand in a paper and it went pretty average I guess. We got out of WC a little early, so I got to eat pizza on my way over to the MEEM from the aftermath cafe for my Computer and Operating System Architecture class. I got Kyle's Calculator for my Lin. Alg exam that was after that because mine lacks an RREF function which was quite crucial for completing the exam on time. In Comp and OS Arch. class, I was struggling really hard to stay awake and almost fell asleep a few times... I bearly was able to keep my eyes open for the iclicker questions.

Well, after that, I had my linear algebra exam which I'm not too sure just how it went, but I guess time will tell and here I am typing. I bet now you're wondering where I got my title "So much to look forward to" from... haha.

Well Spring Break is COMING UP!!! I'm going to FLORIDA!!! -- my favorite state and I'm going on a missions trip and get to hang out with over 20 of my campus crusade friends! Well to make a long story short, I'm really excited. I have to go now though cuz something just came up. Maybe I'll finish this "fascinating" story of my excitement for another time. Hopefully next time I post something, I'll get some good Bible verses on here too.

Day 1: A seed planted and so much more...

God has been working in my life a lot lately. I don't really know where to begin. For those of you reading this, this will be like my journal, so it may be kind of private, but I think people can learn from other people's mistakes and grow from other people's lessons. I will also be able to look back on this and learn from my own mistakes and triumphs.

Through Campus Crusade Bootcamp, God has laid it on my heart to be sharing the gospel more. For everyone I do not share the Gospel with, it's like I'm saying that they're not important to me or that I am too selfish to show them how to be saved. It's hard for me to grasp sometimes that those people who do not come to Christ are going to Hell... how is it that we can just ignore them and walk by them without telling them what life is all about and that there is a reason worth living?

With this in mind, I decided to FINALLY take a step of faith. It was certainly difficult. For me, conversations often start on facebook... lately they have been happening more and more in terms of valuable conversations.

Last night, I used one of the Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) freshman survey forms and brought up the idea of it to one of my friends to see if he was interested in taking it. He said he would in exchange for help on a homework question which I was happy to help with. I then went through 20 questions of the survey with him. I found out he is a Catholic, who does not go to church while here at Tech and he is 75% sure he is going to Heaven. I know with an answer like that, then he is not sure what he believes (as well as I could also tell by answers to other questions). I proceeded to continue asking him all the questions and he seemed pretty open about them which I am grateful to God for. I had been praying that the Lord would soften his heart and prepare him to hear what I had to say. I then told him about the 4 spiritual laws booklet that I wanted to share with him the next time we could meet in person which was today. At 11 o'clock AM, we dove right into it and after reading the whole thing, it shows a prayer at the end about recieving Christ as your Savior. I asked him if it expressed the desire of his heart. He looked at me very strangely and said: "I guess...". Well, I told him he should pray it then, either with or without those words as long as he meant it. He looked at it for a bit in silence as though praying and then said ok. I finished it up with him.

In the end of that conversation, it didn't seem to really sink down into him. He didn't seem to really show any change and didn't really believe me. However, it is my duty to explain the gospel clearly, which I did and God needs to do the changing of his heart. I invited him to TNT which stands for CCC's Thursday Night Thing: our large group meeting. He said he would think about it and didn't shun me at all for what I believed by any means. I guess I tell you all of this to say that Eric needs prayer. That is his name. I will continue to pray for him and bug him about going to TNT. I think he really needs body evangelism by seeing the work of God through fellow believers who truly believe and act on that they believe.

This brings me to a side. I am SO thankful for my CCC friends! If it were not for them, I would be living a luke-warm Christian life like I had been during all of high school. A lukewarm Christian life is useless to God. If we are comfortable, we are doing something WRONG! We need to be persecuted. Through persecution, our true colors show. People can see a taste of what Christ did on the cross for us by our suffering for Him. So, my Campus Crusade friends have really helped me grow closer to God and I enjoy continuing that growth as well as the opportunity to get to know them better and at deeper levels.

Sometimes I think I take it too far. I truly enjoy their friendships but I usually want to hang out so much with people that they get sick of me bugging them about it when they're truly busy. I'm busy too, but I just slack off on my homework too much (at least recently). I want to help them to grow and I want to learn from them, but I am not always good at seeing subtle hints that tell me to lay off and they get frustrated. I understand this and it's something I need to pray about.

I really enjoy social get-togethers, especially small group things. Large group things are great if there are small groups within the large groups as well. I'm a moderately introverted person and I'm also reflective. I do really enjoy hanging out with people though, I just don't like it when things become so shallow. 2nd Timothey 2:16 says: "Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly." This verse has really been speaking to me lately as I look back at all the times I talk about useless things that may be sort of fun at the time, but in the end when I am held accountable before God, will I have done something of real worth? In my high school, I believe that was just the problem. Everyone indulged in godless chatter about unimportant things and never anything serious. Their sarcasm and pride were the reasons I never grew. If I could go back, I would try to change that, but I've moved on now and cannot go back.

I still live at home so I still see my high school friends at church. I would like to tell them these things, but they wouldn't take it the right way. I'd try to show them that God has truly been working in me and I'm not saying it to be prideful and "Holier than though" attitude... just the opposite. I would want to tell them this because I care about them and they need to start living out their faith.

Well this certainly is a long one, but I suppose that is good for a first post and I had a lot to say that was nice to write down. If anyone reads this and makes it all the way through, congratulations! haha. I need to start working on my World Cultures.

Please keep me in your prayers if you can remember that God will continue using me and that I won't ever turn my back on him and live a shallow "comfortable" life.


Some cool verses for thought:
II Tim 2:19
Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: "The Lord knows those who are his," and, "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness."

Micah 7: 7-10
⁷ But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD,
I wait for God my Savior;
my God will hear me.

⁸ Do not gloat over me, my enemy!
Though I have fallen, I will rise.
Though I sit in darkness,
the LORD will be my light.

⁹ Because I have sinned against him,
I will bear the LORD's wrath,
until he pleads my case
and establishes my right.
He will bring me out into the light;
I will see his righteousness.

¹⁰ Then my enemy will see it
and will be covered with shame,
she who said to me,
"Where is the LORD your God?"
My eyes will see her downfall;
even now she will be trampled underfoot
like mire in the streets.